A single point in Minnesota, USA called the Hill of Three Waters near Hibbing splits rain into three different major water bodies in three different directions: south to the Gulf via the Mississippi, northeast to the Atlantic via Lake Superior, and northwest to Hudson Bay via the Red River (yes, some Minnesota rivers flow north, a legacy of glacial Lake Agassiz). One of the flattest states around, somehow feeding into water bodies in 3 totally different directions.

Doug Berger, CEO of Mapquest, tells CNN’s Erin Burnett that users have downloaded the Mapquest app over 1.5 million times since its decision to not change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.

Mapquest, celebrating 30 years in business, is now the #1 navigational app in Apple’s App Store.

When asked for his reaction, Berger said he’s blown away and shocked, but “it’s fun that we’re talking about geography.”

Nuevo Leon has a HDI of 0.857 while Texas has an. Hdi of 0.919.

However, this small HDI difference results in very different economic realities. Companies relocate to Nuevo Leon due to much cheaper labor. And migrants from all over the world are willing to risk their life to cross the Rio Grande for just a 0.06 HDI boost (I assume the Rio Grande Valley, if it's own state, would have a lower HDI of around 0.89).

What's up with Worldle's shape of Sudan? I swear I was very much familiar with the other one, which is also what GoogleMaps (with all it's problems) shows. This led me to guess a bunch of countries around the area even though I knew it couln't be one of them.

Some cities have a remarkably complex pathway to open ocean, despite having direct access to a saltwater inlet or fjord.

One example is Olympia, Washington, US, positioned 60 miles inland from the open Pacific Ocean, but also at the end of the Budd Inlet. A boat must travel a complex pathway of nearly 200 miles laden with tidal currents through fingers of the Puget Sound and then the Strait of Juan de Fuca to reach the open Pacific Ocean.

What other interesting examples exist throughout the world, that have some saltwater and tidal coastline without that being obvious at first glance?

😲

Armenia: Yerevan has around 1.09 million people, making up roughly 36% of the country’s total population. Meanwhile, the second-largest city, Gyumri, has only around 112,000 people.
The gap between the capital and the second-largest city is absolutely massive.

Are there any other non-city-state countries like Armenia where the population gap between the 1st and 2nd largest cities is enormous, with most of the country’s population concentrated in the largest city?

Hello, I wanted to share my recent work for the Italy and its vineyards. This map plots 3,686 vineyards across all regions of Italy, built by randomly sampling vineyard locations. Alongside the vineyard density you can see how closely Italian wine country tracks the country’s forest areas and Mediterranean climate bands, with clustering in places like Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sicily. The main map also features capitals, ports, airtports, UNESCO sites (did you know Italy has the most in the world?), and protected areas. Feedbacks are welcome and I hope you enjoy!

apologies if I am simply not California enough but I am reading "The Settler Sea" by Traci Brynne voyles, and I stumbled upon the absolute insane checkerboard borders of several native American reservations and the Salton Sea wildlife refuge. does anybody know the history and politics of these designs?

furthermore what are the actual political implications of these checkerboards on the jurisdiction of these reservations (and of the wildlife refuge). I live in Arizona and there are generally quite stark borders between more built up areas and reservations/nations (the most famous examples being the border between phonex and the Gila River Reservation.

what does being within the borders of this reservation actually entail or is that the wrong way of thinking about it?

Apologies if this is already a known fact already but I was recently randomly browsing google maps and came across this. Would appreciate it a lot if someone can tell me the story behind this. This is not a quiz or challenge. just curious

https://maps.app.goo.gl/nu6T1o7rC3bHbnRN7

Doesnt have to be a country specifically (though i do prefer if its a country). I just need place where it is apparent that the original culture is being lost, be it language, tradition, architecture, etc.

Hi everyone,

I just finished my B.Sc. in Geography and landed a job as site assessment manager at a company that develops battery storage systems (container solutions, turnkey provider). My job is to find good sites across the country and generate leads.

I started there as an intern. The acquisition process was horrible and extremely inefficient, so I brought in QGIS and rebuilt it. Since then I have been optimising it further, mostly on my own, because I am the only person doing this. Other project developers I know have entire GIS departments covering the same scope.

So I taught myself what I needed: Python basics, remote sensing, some ML, process optimisation, data analysis, and grid analysis with whatever data I can get hold of. Right now I am building a full stack web GIS application with PostGIS, a CRM layer, AI agents and knowledge bases. It is a lot of fun and I am learning fast.

What drives me, and what frustrates me

I hate bland, meaningless work. I want to be challenged and valued for building solutions, ideally at companies doing something that matters, like battery storage. Sole academia research positions wouldn't be for me because they lack direct application.

I am also very learning oriented. The moment I stall, I get bored. That is part of why I could see myself working independently at some point, but before that I want to build up real skills. For the same reason, a government office does not appeal to me right now. From what I hear it sounds incredibly boring. I can see it becoming an option later, once I have kids and want work life balance, and I know that here you basically need a master to be paid decently in the public sector. But that is a later problem.

The other side of it is money. It is not my number one priority, but I want to feel valued when my work is good. At the moment I do not get the sense that my department understands how many resources we actually save or what I am doing technically. They look at numbers only. That is my subjective take, but it is frustrating, and it makes me wonder whether a formal qualification would change how my work is read.

Where I am stuck

Everything I know is self-taught, but in my country degrees and certificates carry real weight on a CV. Master programmes are mostly free of tuition here, and I would want to do one remotely while working full time.

Due to the payment, I applied for a much better paid job in urban energy planning that was looking for exactly my/this skill set. There were only two other applicants. Unfortunately I heard through an internal contact that they had already decided by the time my application landed, so I was too late.

My questions

1. What master would make sense for someone in this position, considering the job market (mainly germany)? Or which field would value this kind of work most?
2. If I can already automate my own job, why invest years in a master, when I cannot even be sure the role exists in five years?
3. I have heard Geoinformatics is too vague and that Data Science or Data Engineering would be the better bet. But I lack informatics credits from my bachelor, so I assume I would not even be admitted. Is there a way around that? Also I'm not limited to sole Data, I'd like to learn more about architecturing because I think that'll be required for building customer-based solutions in AI (GIS) implementation
4. Would certificates be helpful? (again, germany)
5. For anyone who went independent or freelance from a similar spot: did a formal degree matter for winning clients, or was the portfolio enough?
6. Right now I'm building a git-repo, does it make sense for application processes?

I want to point out that I'm not limiting myself to data-analysis.
If there's just any way I can help people with data-driven solutions in my field of expertise I'd be happy, best while having a meaningful goal. Like transforming the energy sector, helping humanity solve problems etc.

Any experience from people who went a similar route would help a lot. Thanks.

On 26 August a mass of hanging glacier and bedrock detached from the north flank of Langtang Lirung, a 7,000 m peak in Nepal’s Langtang range that had already shed a catastrophic avalanche in the 2015 earthquake. The GFZ Helmholtz Centre timed the seismic signal at 02:52:23 UTC and estimated a magnitude of 5.2 to 5.7 from the surface waves. The USGS first logged it as a 4.4 earthquake, then reanalysed the long-period waves and satellite imagery and concluded the energy came from the collapse itself. Whether the initial failure was a landslide that took part of a glacier with it, or a glacial collapse, is still open.

The geography is what made it so destructive. The north flank drains into the Lhende Khola, which crosses into Tibet before turning back south into Nepal as the Bhotekoshi and then the Trishuli. GFZ describes a wall of water and debris tens of metres high moving at 40 to 50 m/s. It reached the Gyirong Port border crossing in under ten minutes, and the Trishuli at Galchhi rose as much as nine metres in thirty minutes, over a hundred kilometres downstream.

What makes any of this checkable is the satellite record: Landsat 9 passed about two hours after the collapse, ESA processed the frame in shortwave infrared to separate water and ice from cloud, and Copernicus EMS activation EMSR927 mapped the flood extent. All of it is preliminary; no inquiry has reported.
I traced the whole path source by source in a longer video for anyone who wants the maps and the timings laid out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFA-wLDPqy8

In particular for the southern limit I have heard either Laguna Canyon, Salt Creek, or somewhere in San Clemente.

Both photos show ripples in the current. However, the one on the right has sand waves 20 meters high.

It was formed by a glacial lake outburst in the Kurai Basin in the Altai Mountains, Russia, at an altitude of about 1,600 meters.

During the Ice Age, the mountains were covered by a continuous glacier. When the glacier began to melt, a lake about 20 kilometers in diameter and hundreds of meters deep formed in the Kurai Basin, dammed by the glacier.

When the ice dam collapsed, all the water flowed downstream, creating giant ripples on the lake bed.

This happened about 15,000 years ago, so people could have witnessed this catastrophe.

On a similar note, I also noticed that there are parts of Madhya Pradesh that sit further west than all of Kerala!

Apologies if this has already been noted/posted about. Just thought it was cool!