I'm a bit late, but I want to write about one more region related to the All Saints' day and
specifically about some place in the Philippines, as Filipinos are famous for celebrating all
Christian holidays hard, with their own unique traditions. I wanted to feature a place other than
Manila as it's too
obvious, everything is concentrated there and a bunch of famous cementeries with massive crowds that
visit them were covered by
the global news outlets. I also didn't want to cover some "gimmicky" graveyards that are destined to
be a tourist
destinations only like the Sunken Cementery or that one that is fully underground, those are awesome
and
the Philippines are full of insane beautiful places, but I feel like a bit more everyday place
deserves some attention.
I decided to feature the second largest metro area in the Philippines - Davao City on
Mindanao Island simply because I've never heard about it anywhere other that in the map atlas. It's
located next to the highest mountain in the country - Mount Apo and nearby
a smaller island called Samal. One of the nickname of the city is The durian capital of The
Philippines
which seems fun, even though I didn't have a pleasure to smell that peculiar fruit so anyway...
Majority of the population is Christian, but the city hosts many different ethinicities, religions
and
languages, the most common of which is both regional Cebuano and national Tagalog, Chinese and
Japanese
culture is also prominent.
How do they celebrate the All Saints' Day? I don't know really, I found very few reports, but
that's thing, not every celebrations must be grand and special, but they definitely have their local
places of rememberance, like Davao Memorial Park.
Frankly I didn't research Davao well enough, but this article is basically my placeholder to
keep
an eye on that place as it's got potential to be kinda like Osaka of The Philippines, the second in
its
country, but tons of hidden infulence and stuff going on.
The first and the second day of November (All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day and adjacent weekend) is
one of the most heavily celebrated holiday season in Poland - at least in terms of road traffic.
It's a major day to visit graves of relatives, meet distant family members, light candles and
occasionally buy some local snacks on the way to cementary (in Warsaw for example Pańska Skórka
is very popular). There are a lot of huge necropolis in all Polish cities, including the famous ones
in Warsaw or Szczecin,
but I wanted to highlight a city that is not in Poland (I already featured two places) but it's
deeply connected to our history and is somewhat relevant to All Saints' season. Innitialy I thought
about the Hill of
Crosses, a major pilgrim destiation with hundred of thousands of crosses on a hill that I
swear looks like an extremely dense cementery. However the history of that place is a bit different,
but still kinda relevant so I'll feature it anyway.
People started to bring up crosses on that hill after the November Uprising in 1831 against the
Russian rule, when they couldn't find their family members that joined the uprising and went
missing. So in a sense, it acted as memorial, even thought no one was buried there. In a next
decades more and more crosses were added and the site became a peaceful symbol of protest against
foreign regimes, at a time when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, the Soviets tried to erase
crosses from the hill and forbid bringing up new ones, Lithuanians did it anyway, despite harsh
penalties. Since Lithuania became independent, people were free to put as many crosses and they want
so unknown number of crosses and other decorations were placed, making the hill so recognizable.
The hill got a bit of international attention because of the Chinese incident, but the major city that's a few kilometers next to it -
Šiauliai (or Szawle in Polish) - is completely unknown and at first glance it doesn't look
remarkable. It's the forth largest city in Lithuania, but in XIX century was the biggest
manufacturing hub of leather products for the entire Russian Empire, then in XX century produced
advanced military electronic equipment for the Soviet Union and in our century the Šiauliai
International Airport will soon become the biggest aircraft maintenance and repair centre in Europe.
Not bad, seemingly provincial town, but was always able to capture some key industry and become a
champion.
When it comes to Halloween style places there are the two obvious choices: the state of Maine
(because of Steven King stories) or Salem. I'm embarassed to admit that for most of my life I
thought the Salem where the witch trials were conducted is the one that's the capital of Oregon. I
realized that another Salem exists on Atlantic shore thanks to The Crew game, because the map got
some small, year-round Halloween themed town called Salem in a place
where Boston supposed to be. Now with this fact straight and with a bit of research about the entire
northeastern tip of the United States, it's safe to say that New England is the origin place of the
Halloween vibe as we know it from the global heavily commercialized culture. All the major
components of Halloween comes from either Scotland, Ireland, Mexico or generally from Christian
culture, were brought into New England and mixed together with creepy stories of religious
prosecutions, victorian prudent look and set in a rainy, rather cold weather in falls and sparsely
populated land with vast forests and haunted British architecture.
New England is the most consistently defined multi-state region that includes Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine (does not include New York, I guess it
could be called New Holland or something). Each state may have some Halloween themed stories and
achievements, like two world records for most lit jack-o'-lanterns on display - contest between
Keene, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts.
Simple story - I watched some Trailer Park Boys, found out that's set in Nova Scotia so I checked
out the map, looking for the place where they shot it, and then some other cool spots around. The
first obvious thing the map shows is that Nova Scotia is a giant woodland, about three quarters of
the land is forested with just a handful of large towns. Lunenburg in particular just from the map
seems like a nice small harbour and I was right, its original wooden architecture of an old British
fishery settlement is in UNESCO list. The whole area looks like an autumn, probably cold one.
I just watched a video of City
Beautiful about primate cities, one of my favourite topic for some reason and seeing a bunch
of enthusiastic comments like "when Uruguay mentioned, I click" I decided to mentioned about a city
in Uruguay other than Montevideo, which by the way, is one of the first city that I always wanted to
visit in South America, it seems so chill :D.
The second largest city in Uruguay is Salto, which the name itself caught my attention
as in many languages (inlcuding Polish) means "backflip". It comes from the Latin word "saltus" -
"jump", but in case of Spanish it reffers to word "waterfall", which are numerous in this region of
a mighty Uruguay River. On the other side
of the river there is Argentinian city of Concoria, but it's not directly connected by a bridge, but
it's possible to cross the river by a road on nearby Salto Grande Dam.
Honestly I have no idea what to say other than if feels like a calm provincial city with a nice
waterfront and some hot springs nearby. Oh and mate is a huge thing in Uruguay in
general, this national drink is always mentioned so I do it too :)
Angola is one of the few countries of Sub-Saharan Africa that I heard about in regular conversations
in person, outside of my purely online research or geeking out some maps and stuff. Usually Luanda is the default gateway to
the country and the most striking example of rapid urbanization of Africa. However if the economic
growth fueled by significant export of oil to China is spent wisely, Angola might become much less
centralized as it's got a fair share of large cities like Benguela, Kabinda or Lubango. The first
time I heard about the last one is on the vlog of polish youtuber and old cars enthusiast Złomnik in
which he drove through Angola
to check out what kind of cars are the most common (including the scrapped ones) and what
that says about the everyday trips and commutes looks like. Enough about this useless story,
Lubango seems to be a pretty large city with a lot going on. It's about 150 km away from the
Atlantic coast and 1 720 meters (a bit more than a mile) above the sea level. Founded by
Portuguese settlers, connected by the railway to Moçâmedes. It was
always a big economic hub except at the time of Angolan Civil War and when various armies including
Cubans were stationing there. Nowadays this bustling city can be viewed from the surrounding
mountains with fun Hollywood style word monument and Rio style statue of Jesus.
Japan elected its first female prime minister ever, kinda late in the history of the major world
leaders, but they got it before the US. Sanae Takaichi was born and raised in Nara Prefecture, in the city of Yamatokōriyama
which is on the outskirts of a massive Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe metro area. Nara is one of the few that is
landlocked prefecture in Japan and even if it's overshadowed by huge coastal metropolis like Osaka,
Nagoya or of course Tokyo, Nara is considered the crade of Japanese civilization, where many ancient
capital cities were found and being located on the crossroad between major lowlands of Honshu
island. Basically it's got all the essential stuff that is associated with non-hyper-urban culture
of Japan: tea, temples, pagodas, mountains and so on. Tourism is one of the key industry here.
Fun fact, in Polish informal language, 'nara' is a short version of a word 'na razie' which
roughly means 'see you later'.
Say what you want, but I think Denmark is a direct neigbour of Poland, just maybe not as close as
Denmark and Sweden are. That's just a 90 km wide strech of water that separates Polish coastline and
the Danish easternmost large island of Bornholm. One of my dream trip is to get a ferry to Rønne, rent a bike or have
my own and ride all around the entire island. Since I saw the whole Bornholm from a plane, I want it
even more, I don't know, there is something so calming about this island, even if it doesn't have
super recognizable historic buildings or remarkable places. That's part of the charm, I don't need
to know what's exactly there to be interested.
One of this surprising and nice places that I spot is the easternmost point of Denmark, which is
not on the coast of Bornholm, but in Ertholmene, minuscule (about 39 hectares, slightly smaller than
Vatican) and hardly ever visible on paper maps archipelago that is located about 18 km northeast of
Gudhjem on the big island.
Ertholmene consist of a bunch of rocky isles that used to be a fortress. The two inhabited islands
are divided by a narrow (and super cute) strait and connected by a tiny bridge with zero motor
vehicle traffic. The rest uninhabited rocks are sanctuaries for birds.
Fiji on a map looks quite like an anticlockwise hurricane or galaxy, it looks really cool on such
vast and empty Pacific Ocean. Even more extreme fact is that Fiji has its own stray 'asteroid' -
Rotuma, the autonomous island that is located at least 470 km away from the major Fijian landmasses.
The Rotumans are a distinct ethnicity originating from Rotuma, but mostly living in 'mainland' Fiji.
On the island the inhabitants formed a society based on small groups and chiefs and tourism is
rather limited as there are no resorts and towns, just villages along the coastal ringroad and
unpaved airstrip. Awesome hideout ;)
Today's featured city is a little shout-out to the webmaster of xsolimini site (thanks again for letting me in the Euroring!) that comes from Alsace, the region that I briefly visited many
years ago as part of sightseeing journey across major European cities. The trip to Strasbourg was
eventually cancelled as the rain was pouring so hard nobody wanted to go outside the bus (looked
very elegant from the window tho), but the next day the weather was great and we were able to walk
around a lovely old town of Colmar!
The whole city was extra peaceful as we arrived just at 14th July which is Bastille Day, the
national holiday of France in which no stores are opened so the streets were rather empty. That
amplified the feeling of a dreamy medieval town full of colours and flowers. Colmar is quite similar
to my hometown Zamość: both have almost the same population and both have historic and picturesque
central districts which architecture influenced by another culture, Colmar by German and Zamość by
Italian. Although only Zamość is UNESCO certified pretty place, Colmar have those quaint urban
canals that makes that city far superior when it comes to loveliness.
Today I chose a Kurdish region because I saw a commercial in a train of some Kurdish music concert
in Museum of Asia and Pacific in Warsaw. The band that played their new album (you can check out this music video with the
scenic footage from the region) at the event alongside Polish musicians is called
Hawraman. The name comes from the alternative name of Avroman, the mountainous region
between Iran and Iraq that's populated by distinct branches of Kurdish people. Deep valleys at the
heart of monumental Zagros Mountains were inhabited since prehistoric times and memorials from the
ancient empires and tribes that lived there are abundant. So far it's the hardest region to pin down
the raw geographic data, no exact numbers, no capital, no precise borders except the loosely defined
area of Cultural Lanscape of Uramanat.
Many years ago I accidentally watched an episode of a show that highlighted some special skills of
kids. I remember that vividly because one of the challange was to guess the exact city
just by looking at unlabeled road map. Some geography nerd boy guessed all three of them,
which was super impressive, as I would never guess that one in the country that I decided to
highlight today.
Anyway, by continuing the streak of lesser known, but large cities in mountainous nations that this
year experienced rapid political changes and upheavals - the smallest out of six metropolitan cities
in Nepal, Biratnagar. Located right next to a southern border with India acts as an important
gateway for tourists and business.
The city is also a birthplace of five prime ministers of democratic Nepal, including the current
one, Sushila Karki which was elected on discord after Nepalese Gen Z
protests.
Thanks to the positive feedback about my featured regions specifically of South America, I badly
want to prepare something special related to the continent, but before anything, I'll keep my pace
with regular posts, this time about Perú! The country was briefly covered in the news as just a
couple days ago the
president of Peru was removed from the office so the capital is recently in the turmoil and
I hope once Dina Boluarte is gone, it's going to be a little bit better, given how much unpopular
she was. But honestly I don't really want to talk about politics on this section so I decided to
bring a little spotlight into the second largest city in Peru - Arequipa.
Even if I was't actively looking, I heard something about Lima, Cuzco, Maccu Picchu (of course)
and Iquitos, but Arequipa was never mentioned. For me it was known as a large city in Peru that on a
large scale maps looks like it's on the coast, but in reality it's almost 90 km away and lies
2 335 m (or 1.45 miles) above sea level. Now I know it's also a city where the
Constitutional Court of Peru is located so it's both economically and politically second most
important metro area.
In terms of actual cool stuff, Arequipa is a UNESCO certified place with its large historic
urban core, full of colonial architecture made of volcanic rocks that have its own style greatly
influenced by indigenous people like Quechua.
Projections for
the largest cities in the world up to year 2100 have some wild claims, like
the exponential rise of cities in Southeastern Asia and Africa. The craziest one that's predicted is
the unbelievable growth of two major cities in Malawi: the capital city of Lilongwe and the most
important economic hub of Blantyre. According to this predictions each city would be populated by at
least 40 million people, while today the entire Malawi has little more than 20 million citizens. I
have no idea how's that possible, but I hope the environment around will be protected as it's a
pristine African savannah.
For my entire life I though Madeira is a single island, but my conviction was shattered by a casual
conversation about convertibles made by Fiat. They don't make sense in cold continental Europe in
October, but on a winterless volcanic island with little rain those are fun machines to move around
the area 17 times smaller than Madeira's main island and two times smaller than Hong Kong island
replica map in Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. The island is much more arid than Madeira as it's
average elevation is much lower so it doesn't capture much clouds which is handy when you want to
lay down on a long sandy beach on the east side of Porto Santo.
Czech small cities with medieval history are always super cute and have badass medieval emblems.
This one between Prague and České Budějovice is a great example, but it's not well known, I just
happened to remember this town because I met some guy at work from there. The town although not
swarmed by tourists, it's packed with history that starts when the Hussites found a christian
commune in 1420. The name 'Tábor' comes from Mount Tabor in Palestine and the nearby lake is called
Jordan. Given how funny Czech language is for us Poles, I thought it might have something to do with
the word 'Taboret' - small backless chair. But unlike taboret, Tábor is very comfortable to spend a
whole day, it's a compact city with plentiful trees scattered along the winding historic streets
built up with houses straight from the fairytale that eventually leads to a nice central town
square. I wish I could take a spin around Czechia to check out this type of small towns, there is
more to see other then expensive Prague (being there a decade ago I was baffled why there are so
many prices in euro).
Located in Sahara desert 750 km south from Algiers on the coast, Ouargla is the last large city on
the route through the desert heading south to Sahel region. The city caught my attention thanks to
this map of Africa on
UrbanRail.net (it's sad that's so empty tho). I was intrigued by how many tram systems
Algeria has developed (apparently in 2010's there was a whole tram craze in Algeria that no one
talks about) and Ouargla's stands out not only by its sheer distance deep into Algeria's interior,
but also how modern it is, opened in 2018. I hope the AC in those trams works fast, the climate is
scorching hot during summers, but at least the citizens can enjoy almost constantly clear sky and
mild winters. Culturally Ouargla is both Berber and Arab, with some people still speaking local
Berber Ouargli
language. The area is also one of the few places on Earth where sand roses can be
found, a very peculiar natural rock formations that are made of delicate minerals eroded to the
shape of a flower.
To be honest learning all first level subdivisions of Mexico was much harder than those of the US or
Canada. I rather not memorize places just for the sake of it, it's much easier and more enjoyable to
learn places if you know some facts and fun trivias. For Mexico, this video by Geography
Now about states of Mexico was very helpful with that. Durango caught my attention because
of the nickname "Colorado of Mexico", one of my favourite states when it comes to the nature, that
is high average altitude, mountains, endless forests, sparsely populated semi-deserts and only a
handful of large cities. The only not fun thing about this stunning area is scorpios, not my type of
animal. It's also worth link sharing as the first results always yield Ford Durango, not the state.
Yesterday, while travelling through Konin county I saw for the first time the Basilica of Our Lady in Licheń
(spelled Lee-kheñ, ń letter sounds like Spanish ñ). It's the largest and most pompous Catholic
sanctuary in Poland. The construction was consecrated in 1999 by Pope John Paul II and completed in
2007. The church was created to commemorate the instances of the revelation of Maria in XIX century.
I'm not going to bring up the history and details of this place, but from what I can tell, seeing
that giant tower between empty fields from a road 3 km away, it is huge. The complex with
its scale and opulence greatly reminds me of that mega
church in Yamoussoukro completed earlier, in the 90's.
Alias of the city: Korat. The third largest city in Thailand after Bangkok and Chiang Mai
is not well known to say the least. It completely flies over the radar, when the whole attention
goes to either extremely large Bangkok, cultured Chiang Mai or various tropical resorts with Phuket
Island being the most famous. It is and always was however a very important economic hub for the
region where Thai, Laotian and Khmer cultures meet. It's one of the two places in Thailand where
disc drives are made, production of which is the second largest in the world only after China.
Nakhon Ratchasima is very modern city with huge shopping malls and high speed railway to Bangkok
under construction, expected to open in 2027, but also a historic place that through the centuries
gained many temples and archeology sites and also hosts the monument of a national hero Lady Mo.
I'm planning to feature places from various contintents evenly, but I spot so many Belgian license
plates around Warsaw that I decided to commemorate a tiny village in Ardennes that hosts The Polonia
House - lovely guesthouse for Polish tourists and pilgrims, that I happened to briefly stay during
my trip to Brussels. The valley of the river L'Ourthe is very picturesque, the hills are steep and
rocky, but not massive, and climbing up there gives a very scenic view of a cozy rural Wallonia.
This brief trekking also gave me an idea what kind of terrain was a setting of the Ardennes
Offensive. Previously I thought those are just barely noticable bumps (and the whole Benelux is
flat), but now since then I'm convinced Ardennes are quite challenging for large human endevours
like railway construction (or world wars).
The regions is also notoriously Francophone, that's why it's the only featured region so far with
non-english wikipedia link 🥖.
I didn't expect to feature this city in Romania, but this silly facebook
commercial got me off guard :D. Oradea is the ninth largest city in Romania, on the edge of
Hungarian plains and Transylvanian highlands, located very close to the border with Hungary that
massively influenced this city, for centuries being the fortress that proctected the rest of the
kingdom from invasions from the east. Today the city promotes itself as a welcoming tourist
destination with a large medieval castle, Art Nouveau architecture, thermal springs and festivals.
Not gonna lie, until now, I barely knew any city in Guatemala other than well... Guatemala City. I
neglected that country, even though it's full of precolumbian monuments and history. I'm also a
Spanish language noob and just recently realized that 'Antigua' means 'Ancient' and Antigua
Guatemala is a former capital, founded by Spanish in between three volcanos on an area prone to
earthquakes that eventually destroyed the city in 1773 and then the capital was moved to present day
Guatemala City. Ruined palaces and churches with volcanos in the background looks absolutely epic,
but also reminds us that people may decide where to build their cities, but the nature might reject
those ideas.
Initially I was planning to feature less known Chinese cities, but I just can't help it. I heard
nothing but praises about its insanely complex infrastructure, both horizontal and vertical. From
the deepest metro station to sky high bridges and steep hills, Chongqing is probably the hardest
Cyberpunk map to recreate. I think it's a bit too much to say that it's the largest city on Earth,
as much of its administrative area is rural, you can't take away multiple world records in
engineering that easy.
Also, the surronding mountain ranges that look like green scars cutting throught the metro area
seems just unreal, just check out the 3D version of that region.
I heard about Kowloon Walled City many times, just recently watching the recreation of that city in
Minecraft, but I've never heard about medieval skyscrapers in Yemen. Shibam looks stunning,
the desert setting, the palms, clay color, the sun and the river, that's kind of authentic Arabian
cities worth visiting, sadly it's very difficult because of the civil war.
The largest settlement on the east coast of Greenland was introduced to me 8 years ago by famous
Polish youtuber Krzysztof Gonciarz. In his epic vlog series in Greenland he showed a little bit of way of life in that very
remote town as well as travelling by a dog sled to even more extreme mountains and cut-off places.
Absolutely stunning place, even when the entire point of view is just blinding white glacier.
I'm dedicating this featured region to Gonciarz, as he's the youtube guy that I followed for 15
years and now he's finally got back his reputation after false accusations (spolier, the lady in
this vlog next to him turned out to be evil).
Tamrash is an abandoned village in the middle of the mountainous forest between Bulgaria and Greece
that for a brief moment was the capital of an independent Republic of Tamrash, the rebel state of
Muslim Pomaks that didn't want to be either Ottomans, Greeks or Bulgarians. The place was relatively
difficult to find on a map (searching it on Google Maps does not work) but I needed to make sure
where it is as I'm working on an article that will be centered around this kind of microstates, and
this one in modern-day Bulgaria is one of the most secluded.
Smashed the brand new Map Men
video about twin towns as soon as it showed up on my YouTube recommendations and got
imidiately inspired to feature one of my hometown twin town: Loughborough in Leichestershire. The
connnection is not apparent, but it's there: both have almost the same population number and the
citizens of both cities can struggle to pronounce the names of their peers - Zamość have palatalized
's' and 'c' letters which English doesn't have and Loughborough have 'ugh' two times and both
spelled differently.
Also in Zamość we have cycle paths along the river named after each twin city. I used to ride them a
lot and Loughborough's section used to have cool bike park.
Malarikkal is a rice field that for a couple of weeks becomes a lake covered in beautiful blooming
water lilies. That's another natural wonder that I didn't know exists just because the geopolitics
draws more of my attention. I only got to know this place because of this news segment from
France24. It actually summarised the current state of the world: riots of young people,
beligerent politics of the orange mussolini and small spots of natural wonder flocked by tourists.
I was casually researched the capital cities of each Australian state and I realized how little
attention I paid to the smallest and least centralized state of Tasmania - the Australia of
Australia, due to its remoteness from the rest of already remote country. Only recently for the
first time I examined up close the map of the city of Hobart with surrounding areas and I absolutely
love the abunance of long and deep harbours, tons of bays and the heavily forested mountains around
it.
While I was looking at skycrapers under construction chart, among Chinese and Arabian crowd a 421m
high Tour F in Abidjan stands out. My original plan was not to feature major cities, but I just want
to gently remind us that African countries are the future. Not that skyscrapers are any indicator of
increasing wealth of regular citizens, but the new metro system under construction actually is. The
rapid economic growth of Ivory Coast is very apparent and I like it a lot, I wish to witness an
African country that emerges as rich and globally influencial on its own terms, just like South
Korea is now in Asia, and Ivory Coast is one of the most promising place!
The history is not over and some places are emerging as a new states. Bougainville might soon
(between 2026 and 2028) become the most recetnly independent country, seceding from Papua New Guinea. The
island is rich in copper and gold so there is some large geopolitcal competition going on between
major players like China that we have no idea about.
The main island is covered in rainforest with abandoned copper mine in the middle, the only
two large towns are Arawa, the largest city and former capital of the region, and Buka, the current
capital, located on Buka Island, separated from the main island by half kilometer wide Buka Strait.
The whole area is rarely visited by tourists so maybe as soon as it appear on the political maps, a
new wave of visitors might want to be first to check out. Or maybe better not, the future should
depend of its citizens.
Once upon a time I was watching some random satellite channels on TV and landed on a broadcast of
African football cup,
was held in Equatorial Guinea. That's when I heard about any city in Equatorial Guinea other than
Malabo and learnt
a bit about how the economy is running there. The numbers show the decent level of Bulgaria, the
quality of life not so much,
maybe that's something to do with the leadership busy with prestige project such as
the new capital in the middle of jungle instead of using the potential of already robust
coastal city of Bata.
Inspired by the Geography Now
video about Seven Sisters region today I'm highlighting the largest city of of that peculiar
region in northeastern India with culture and demographics vastly different from the rest of India.
Located on a Brahmaputra
river the city acts as an important bridge between north and south bank of that massive
river (just check it out on the map, it's kilometers wide with thousands of islands) and the
starting point to visit all the other 'Sisters'.
The second largest city in Paraguay, "East City" is meant to be the gateway to Atlantic Ocean of
Paraguay as it lies on the upper part of navigable Parana river and
right next to a tripoint border between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Ciudad del Este is connected
with Brazilian city on the other side of Parana river Foz do Iguaçu by the
Friendship Bridge, but not directly connected to Argentinian city Puerto Iguazú. Up
the river on the north of this peculiar trpoint urban area there is a third largest hydrolelectric
power plant - Itaipu Dam
There is also a new bridge coming out between Paraguay and Brazil - Integration Bridge.
Tampere have a special place in the worldwide gaming culture as it's the city where the Cities
Skylines was developed. Tampere is the second largest metro area in Finland and the largest
city in Nordic countries without access to the sea. The city have a nickname "Sauna Capital of the
World" as it's got the most public saunas in the world, and "Manchester of the North" as if OG
Manchester isn't north enough. Also it used to be a huge industrial center so it's kinda like the
Finnish Inland Empire.
At first I was going to write the entry only about the city of Concepción, but
as soon as I realized this city is the capital of region called Biobío, I knew that the
whole area deserve recognition. Come on, it's got everything, the ocean, the cities, the wilderness,
mountains, forests, glaciers, lakes, rivers, islands, volcanos, earthquakes (a lot of those) and
even its own little Los
Angeles! For the first time I saw Concepción on the atlas as a small kid and since
then it's one of the few Chilean that I remember, but now with unlimited internet and online maps I
can see it up close, and its geography is even cooler!
Did you know that for a brief moment Poland had border with The Netherlands?
Right after the end of World War II Polish troops alongside British Army occupied an enclave in
western Germany where many Polish refugees were living.
Here's the map of that area made by
University of Warsaw. A small town of Haren was renamed Maczków and between 1945-1948 became
a place to stay for Polish forces and people
liberated from labour and prisoners of war camps.
The "Dubai of Brazil" that you may never heard about. I heard about it just this year and I still
struggle to fully remember that name. It's a large city resort with hundreds of skyscrapers (mostly
hotels), just like Benidorm in
Spain which is also not that hyped. I really like the layout of Balneario Camboriu, it's got that
cool peninsula created by Rio Camboriu. This entry is also kinda shoutout to a bunch of cool
websites made by Brazilians, especially Kuroi
OS and The Nitpicky Cat!
Did you know that back in the communism era in Poland there was a truck manufacturing company called
Star and its name comes from a
town in Świętorzyskie (Saint Cross) Voivodeship called Starachowice! Even though few trucks under
this brand left on the roads as the company was eventually bought by Man, if you every visit the
city, you may find tiny models of original trucks planted on popular spots of the city. Counting
Stars in Starachowice means something else :D
Thanks to Geography by Geoff video Astoria: The Major West Coast City That Never Was I found out that this
small town, the oldest one in the state of Oregon, have the topography stunningly similar to San
Francisco, yet didn't have a chance to become major metropolitan area on the coast of Cascadia.
Noticed in JetPunk quiz 100 Biggest Cities in Europe before the Black Death. I've never heard of
this town before, but it used to be one of the most important city on the eastern side of
Mediterrean Sea! It's located on the coast of Laconia, the region where the ancient city of Sparta.
Oh, and I got new fun word for my dictionary: tombolo.
Nordic towns on the map have very distinctive look, the road network is very organic, but organized
and gently fits into whatever mountains, glaciers or volcanos are nearby.
I am obsessed with small islands that hosts comparably large settlements and Vestmannaeyjar
Municipality is the perfect example of a unique little town located on an separate islet,
12 km away from the "mainland" Iceland. The municipality also covers entire epic archipelago of
small volcanic islands including Surtsey - the island that literally rised from the ocean in 1963!
Even though Gibraltar is order
of magnitude more famous, it's actually this small Andalusian town is the southernmost tip of
continental Spain. Located on Costa de la Luz (the coast of light) is one of the most popular
destination for windsports and I guess it's thanks to its outstanding location on the narrow strait
between two massive bodies of water. I'm also wondering where that name comes from, is it have
something to do with the tariffs?
I just stumbled upon this peculiar name on the list of cities in Central Asia,
apparently it's very old and used to be an important Silk Road city. Also I like
the map in the article of the Jizzax Fortress from 1866. Oh and it's spelled
"Gee-Zack" and is sometimes written 'Jizzakh'.
I though that Jaffna
is the second largest city in Sri Lanka until I learned that it Jaffna was damaged
during Sri Lanka Civil War, it was quite long time ago (up to 2009) and I didn't
figure out. Kandy is the largest inland city in Sri Lanka and the last capital of
Sinhalese monarchy.
Davao City, Philippines
