87 Geography Facts - Countries, Landmarks & World Cultures

Countries

Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined, with over three million bodies of water larger than 2 hectares.
China shares its borders with 14 countries, the same number as Russia.
Iceland has no mosquitoes due to its cool climate and lack of stagnant water.
Switzerland hasn’t fought a foreign war since 1815 and remains famously neutral.
Brazil covers almost half of South America and borders every country except Chile and Ecuador.
Monaco is smaller than New York’s Central Park but has the world’s highest population density.
Indonesia consists of over 17,000 islands, though only about 6,000 are inhabited.
Norway’s coastline, if unfolded, would stretch over 80,000 kilometres due to its many fjords.
Ethiopia is the only African country never colonised by a European power.
Chile stretches over 4,200 kilometres from north to south, spanning nearly every climate zone on Earth.

See also: History Facts - Ancient Civilisations, Wars & Hidden Stories

Capitals

Canberra was chosen as Australia’s capital to end a rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.
Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, has changed its name several times, most recently returning to 'Astana' in 2022.
Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, is the world’s coldest capital city.
Reykjavik, Iceland, runs almost entirely on geothermal and hydroelectric energy.
Nairobi began as a railway camp before becoming Kenya’s bustling capital.
Brasília was built from scratch in the 1950s to encourage population growth inland.
Suva, the capital of Fiji, was moved from Levuka because the old port city was too small and mountainous.
Ottawa, Canada’s capital, sits on the border between Ontario and Quebec, bridging English and French cultures.
Kathmandu is the only capital surrounded entirely by mountains over 1,000 metres high.

See also: Weird Facts - Strange Laws, Records & Mysteries

Natural Wonders

The Grand Canyon reveals nearly two billion years of Earth’s geological history through its exposed rock layers.
Mount Everest grows about 4 millimetres higher each year due to tectonic activity.
The Amazon rainforest produces about 20% of the world’s oxygen.
Victoria Falls is known locally as 'The Smoke That Thunders' for its roaring mist and spray.
The Dead Sea is so salty that swimmers float effortlessly on its surface.
Uluru in Australia appears to change colour at sunrise and sunset due to the angle of light.
The Great Barrier Reef is the only living structure visible from space.
Antelope Canyon’s smooth curves were carved entirely by flash floods and wind erosion.
Iceland’s Blue Lagoon is man-made, yet its mineral-rich waters have natural geothermal origins.

Landmarks

The Eiffel Tower was meant to be dismantled after 20 years but was saved because it proved useful for radio transmissions.
The Great Wall of China isn’t a single continuous wall but a network of walls built over centuries.
The Taj Mahal changes colour depending on the time of day and moonlight.
Machu Picchu was unknown to the outside world until its rediscovery in 1911 by Hiram Bingham.
The Statue of Liberty’s green colour comes from the natural oxidation of its copper surface.
The Colosseum could hold up to 80,000 spectators and featured retractable awnings for shade.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa began tilting during construction due to unstable soil.
Stonehenge’s stones were transported over 200 kilometres from Wales.
Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro took nine years to complete and was finished in 1931.

Maps

No map projection can perfectly represent the Earth’s surface because a sphere cannot be flattened without distortion.
Greenland appears almost the size of Africa on the Mercator map, though Africa is actually 14 times larger.
The Peters Projection map preserves relative size but distorts shape to give a fairer view of the world.
Early maps often placed Jerusalem at the centre of the world for symbolic reasons.
The oldest known world map, the Babylonian Imago Mundi, dates back to the 6th century BCE.
Antarctica was drawn on maps centuries before it was officially discovered, due to ancient speculation.
The International Date Line zigzags to avoid splitting nations and islands into different calendar days.
Google Maps once caused a border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua after a digital boundary error.

Borders

Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait are only 3.8 km apart, yet they are 21 hours apart in time zones.
The Netherlands and Belgium share Baarle, a town with one of the most complex borders in the world.
The border between Egypt and Sudan contains a small unclaimed area called Bir Tawil.
Spain has a small land border with the UK at Gibraltar, only 1.2 km long.
Mount Everest marks the border between Nepal and China, with climbers often starting from either side.
Belgium and the Netherlands have over 20 enclaves and counter-enclaves within Baarle-Hertog.
Norway and Sweden share the world’s longest unguarded border at over 1,600 km.
France shares borders with more countries than any other in Europe—eight in total.
There’s a bar in Baarle where you can drink in two countries at once, depending on which table you sit at.

Populations

More people live inside the circle centred on China than outside it.
Tokyo’s metropolitan area is home to over 37 million people, making it the largest in the world.
Nigeria is projected to surpass the United States in population by 2050.
The Vatican City has fewer than 1,000 residents but over 4 million visitors each year.
Half of the world’s population lives in just seven countries.
Mongolia has one of the lowest population densities, with fewer than three people per square kilometre.
Shanghai’s population exceeds that of entire nations like Australia and Portugal.
The population of Iceland is smaller than that of many global cities.

Languages

Papua New Guinea has over 800 spoken languages, the highest linguistic diversity on Earth.
French is spoken on five continents, making it one of the most globally widespread languages.
The Basque language is unrelated to any other known language family.
Mandarin Chinese is the world’s most spoken language, with over a billion native speakers.
In Luxembourg, it’s common for residents to switch between three official languages in a single day.
There are about 200 constructed languages, including Esperanto and Klingon.
Arabic has over 30 distinct dialects that can differ greatly between regions.
The word 'alphabet' itself comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.

Climates

The Sahara Desert, once covered in grasslands and lakes, turned arid about 5,000 years ago due to shifts in Earth’s orbit.
Antarctica is technically the world’s largest desert, receiving less precipitation than the Sahara.
The Atacama Desert in Chile has areas where no rainfall has ever been recorded.
The hottest temperature on record was 56.7°C in Death Valley, California, in 1913.
The coldest inhabited place on Earth is Oymyakon, Russia, where temperatures drop below −60°C.
The Amazon rainforest influences global rainfall and carbon cycles more than any other region.
The equator experiences almost equal day and night length year-round.
Venice is sinking slowly each year as sea levels rise due to climate change.

Cultures

In Bhutan, national success is measured by Gross National Happiness instead of GDP.
In Japan, there are more pets than children under 15, reflecting social and demographic changes.
In Ethiopia, the calendar is seven years behind the Gregorian calendar.
India has over 2 million temples, many still used daily for worship.
In Finland, there’s an annual wife-carrying competition where the winner receives the wife’s weight in beer.
In Italy, coffee culture is so ritualised that ordering a cappuccino after 11 a.m. is frowned upon.
In the UAE, camel racing uses robot jockeys instead of humans to prevent child labour.
In Spain, entire towns participate in tomato fights during the La Tomatina festival.
In Sweden, the word 'lagom' expresses balance and moderation, a key cultural value.