Geography

This part of the planet would have looked a whole lot different.

America Was Almost Two Separate Continents

The east and the west were nearly different continents

Searles Lake, California

The Science Behind Earth’s Many Colors

A new book of breathtaking aerial photography by Bernhard Edmaier explains how the planet's vividly colored landscapes and seascapes came to be

How Much of a Subway Map Can One Person’s Brain Process?

A group at MIT has figured out how to build a better subway map, by replicating how the brain processes a map

This Map From 1812 Is Missing a Whole Continent

Back when America was small, Australia was "New Holland," and big chunks of the world seemingly didn't exist

You might be curious, is this something macroscopic or microscopic? It’s actually the wing of a green darner dragonfly, as seen through a scanning electron microscope.

Macro or Micro? Test Your Sense of Scale

A geographer and a biologist at Salem State University team up to curate a new exhibition, featuring confounding views from both satellites and microscopes

Jonah is cast overboard to a sea monster in an image from the earliest known atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum, by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, first published in 1570.

The Enchanting Sea Monsters on Medieval Maps

Fictitious animals on 16th and early 17th century maps hint at how people's perception of the ocean has changed over time

A recreation of an ancient English farm

Early Agriculture Nearly Tanked Ancient Europe’s Population

While the rise of agriculture allowed human populations to blossom, it also opened the door for catastrophic collapses

Lomboc Island is now a sleepy vacation spot.

The Case of the Mysterious, Thirteenth-Century Eruption Might Finally be Solved

In A.D. 1257 a massive volcano erupted, spreading ash all over the world. The problem is that scientists have no idea where the eruption happened

An extended view, from 1 AD to 2000 AD. If you click it will get bigger and easier to read.

This Map Is a Crash Course in European History, 1 A.D. to Today

A three minute video shows 1000 years of European conquest

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An Underwater Volcano the Size of New Mexico Is the World’s Largest

The Tamu Massif is not only the world's largest volcano, but also one of the largest documented volcanoes in the solar system

The whole map, in all its zoomable, scrollable glory, can be found here.

This Map, With a Dot for Every American, Shows the Country’s Racial Divisions

With one dot for every person, color-coded by race, this map shows the distribution of Americans

Discoveries by European explorers that didn’t involve claiming land where people were already living.

These Are All the Places That Europeans Actually Discovered

Of all the places you think were discovered by Europeans, how many were actually discovered by Europeans?

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These Bright Webs Depict Flight Patterns Around Major Airports

Software engineer Alexey Papulovskiy has built Contrailz, a site that generates visuals of flight data over cities around the world

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San Francisco From the Air, 1938 and Today

This amazing composite photo gives a scrollable, zoomable high-resolution view of 1938 San Francisco

Climate Change Is Making the Whole Planet Tip

Climate change isn't just making the North Pole warmer, it's actually changing where the North Pole is located

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Scientists Map Britain’s Most Famous Underwater City

Researchers have created a 3D visualization of Dunwich using acoustic imaging

Over the past few decades Lake Urmia in Iran has steadily dried up.

28-Year Satellite Time-Lapse Shows Exactly What We’re Doing to Our Planet

28 years in just a few seconds, as seen from space

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This Is How the New Bird Flu Could Get to You

If H7N9 learns to transmit from person to person, here is how it could spread around the world

A map of the Mississippi Territory c. 1817

After 195 Years, Georgia Is Still Complaining About Its Border With Tennessee

Georgia, again, wants to move its border a mile to the north

Albania Has No Idea What to Do With All of These Leftover War Bunkers

Albania's 700,000 war bunkers aren't going anywhere soon, so locals are turning them into hostels, animal sheds and make-out spots

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