5 Things About Geography You’re Wrong About

Discover five surprising geographic myths debunked! From the Sahara's true terrain to distorted maps, coastlines' paradoxes, the real longest river, and unexpected transcontinental countries—prepare to rethink the world!

[BradGryphonn]

5:35 With respect to Norway's coastline, Slartibartfast, when designing it, probably didn't expect it to be one of the longest coastlines in the world. He just had a thing about fjords.

[Swamp]

The most shocking part of this video is finding out that people think sand dunes are hills covered in sand

[BrOckSamsn]

1:00 "only a portion is covered with sand, between 15 and 25%" ... that's like 700, 000 square miles. I'd say that picturing this absolutely massive (staggeringly massive) landmark when thinking of the Sahara is perfectly reasonable.

[bioLarzen]

A France-related fun fact: most people with a degree of knowledge about European geography "know" that France and Netherlands are not neighbours (Belgium comes in between). Well, you can win an easy bet against such people by claiming France and Netherlands are in fact land neighbors - we just have to go to a different continent, namely North America, where, there is the island of Saint Martin / Sint Marteen, half of which is an overseas territory of France and the other half belongs to the Kingdom of the Netherlands - with a nice land border between them. There is your French-Dutch border. The only pair of European countries with a shared land border outside Europe.

[ignitionfrn]

0:30 - Chapter 1 - The sahara isn't actually very sandy
2:50 - Chapter 2 - Maps are very, very warped
5:10 - Chapter 3 - Coastlines are not what you think
7:20 - Chapter 4 - The longest river might not be the Nile
9:15 - Chapter 5 - There are many continent splitters

[svargyle]

You can easily see the actual size of countries by using Google maps and zooming way out. It becomes a 3-D sphere. You can also look at a globe.

[KenFullman]

Everyone knows the Amazon is the longest river in the world, but we're still in denile.

[BruceBoyde]

The Mercator projection thing that really stunned me is that Madagascar is actually almost 2.5 times larger than Great Britain.

[travesty-studios]

You can tell that some maps really mess up sizes when you learn that the length from top to bottom of Africa is similar to the width Russia.

[LivingWithTheCoopers]

When I was in the Sahara in Morocco, it was mainly like a gravel car park, but with loads of fossils because it was an ancient sea bed.

[glstka]

7:06 Norway coastline is due to its many fjords. The chjevys don't contribute to it.

[dcvariousvids]

I was correct on the Norway answer. After all, Slartibartfast liked all the crinkly bits.

[geradkavanagh]

I encountered the coastline edge problem numerous times while working for a cadastral surveyor. Just defining the median high tide mark could be an absolute headache in areas where the nearest tidal gauges were a long way away. Add to that both erosion and accretion events along shorelines and before you knew it, nothing would match previous survey plans and areas of land allotments along coastal areas.

[nunyabiznez]

Fun fact, in some parts of the Sahara the sand depth is 300ft deep 😳

I can only imagine what's buried under it, you it was a lush forest area at one point

[squee]

5:17 Your graphics department seems to forget that the Canadian Archipelago, and North West Passage are part of Canada - and that the "thousands of islands" you mentioned need to be included in their graphics.

[setra]

Norway having the second longest coast line would make Slartibartfast proud

[wocookie]

I’ve been in many deserts, from the Arctic, to Egypt, and the empty 1/4. In the UAE. As well the Mediterranean area, and Afghanistan. All deserts are mostly rock. Only the empty 1/4, and a stretch outside Cairo, had the sand dunes we expect of a desert.

[hgabor]

respect for starting with what's in the thumbnail

[gwcrispi]

We should be glad the majority of the Sahara is not sand dunes. The sand worms would prevent crossing it...

[AnthonyKimbrell-ye]

You always make tough topics feel manageable!