25 Mind-Bending Geography Facts That Will Change How You Think About The Planet

I haven’t thought about geography since high school, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to learn something new. Take these mind-blowing geography facts people are sharing in this Reddit thread.

How many of these did you already know?


1. “Virginia goes farther west than the westernmost point of West Virginia”

BlazingFish123

2. “Maine is the closest US state to Africa.”

Seamlesslytango

3. “If you travel from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal, you go from east to west.”

JoeWildwest

4. “Reno is as far north as Philadelphia”

blindfire40

5. “Reno, Nevada is farther west than Los Angeles, California.”

xcesiv_77

6. “Toronto, Canada, is south of Minneapolis, United States.”

nineseventeenam

7. Chile can fit inside of North America

thetruesize

8. “Canada is 41 times the size of the UK and also has a Provincial park larger than Switzerland.”

Stormcell75

9. “New York City (waaaay up there in North America) and Naples (waaaay down there in southern Italy) are on the same latitude.”

plankmeister

10. “Palm trees grow in Ireland, at 53 degrees North.”

RemoteWasabi4

11. Map of North American cities transposed onto the opposite continent at the same latitude

imgur

12. “Australia is wider than the moon”

fouryinthehouse

twitter

13. “The easternmost point of Brazil is closer to Africa than to its westernmost point”

Thessiz

14. “The distance between New Zealand and Australia is roughly the same as the distance between the Netherlands and Libya.”

Javanz

15. “Africa is HUGE, and maps you’ve seen your whole life are hugely misleading.”

Izodius

thetruesize.com

16. “If you took a boat out of Reykjavík and sailed directly south, the first land mass you’d hit would be Antarctica.”

RyzenRaider

17. “Alaska is simultaneously the furthest west, east, and northern point in the US.”

robexib

18. “Relatively speaking, we live on the skin of an apple. That’s about how thick the Earth’s crust is in proportion to its volume.”

Taman_Should

19. “Detroit is farther east than Atlanta.”

TheRealKrazyA

20. New Zealand is about as “long” as the Eastern Seaboard

thetruesize

21. Bermuda is smaller than Cleveland, OH

thetruesize

22. This is how big India is compared to the United States:

thetruesize

23. European states overlaid on the map of the US

Martinswfan

thetruesize

24. Russia is bigger than the United States…but not THAT much bigger.

thetruesize

25. Florida and Egypt are around the same latitude

thetruesize

h/t

Nate

Nate Armbruster

When he's not doomscrolling Twitter or writing for Pleated-Jeans, Nate Armbruster writes jokes—and then tells them on stage as a stand-up comedian, where he can watch audiences (hopefully) laugh in real-time.