Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Borders

  • Arizona Strip

    Arizona’s observance of time demonstrates considerable weirdness. This article isn’t about time, however, although it’s about Arizona. I think of Arizona at least twice a year, in Spring and in Autumn when the United States toggles between standard and daylight saving time. A disconnected memory triggered by the upcoming time change floated back into to…

  • Canada to Mexico

    [EDITOR’S NOTE: Google Maps changes its algorithms periodically. Times and distances were correct when published in 2012; they have changed in the meantime] The Twelve Mile Circle continues to generate all sorts of interesting search engine queries, an endless stream of potential article topics. I remember back in the early days of the blog I…

  • Chincoteague and Assateague

    The dirty little secret of the geo-oddities blogger community is that there’s only so much geographic weirdness to go around. We all tend to overlap with our material from time-to-time, and that’s fine. We each apply our own spin on a common set facts to develop something original and creative. I’d been trying to think…

  • Ferry from Maryland to Virginia

    It’s time to provide another Public Service Announcement. These are Twelve Mile Circle articles that answer burning questions from one-time visitors in the general public that may not appeal to the regular audience. I’ll talk about maps, transportation and a little about history that may interest a localized segment of readers. Feel free to continue…

  • Barron County Street Grid

    I stumbled upon Barron County, Wisconsin — figuratively speaking — as I researched the Big Zero article. There seemed to be a plethora of zero-themed streets in the United States. In fact I think I’d claim that no other nation competes with the sheer number of zero streets, avenues, lanes, drives, etc., found throughout the…

  • Big Zero

    I noticed something I hadn’t seen before as I gazed upon a map of the Canada – United States border. Well, maybe I’d noticed it before although it must not have registered at the time if that’s the case. What? You don’t stare at maps of the border? It’s one of my fixations. I’ve learned…

  • Capitals on Edge

    An interesting query came onto the site the other day. I hadn’t really thought about it previously so I decided to give it some thought and figure it. The essence of the question centered on the number of national capitals abutting international borders. It’s a situation where one hopes the nation has good relations with…

  • Bridge Between Wisconsin and Michigan

    My favorite inspiration, random Internet queries falling from the sky onto the Twelve Mile Circle via search engines, struck again recently. This time our anonymous explorer wanted to find more information about a bridge from Wisconsin to Michigan. The natural reflex would be to pull out a map… … and say to oneself, a bridge…

  • New Sweden

    The New Sweden colony first made an appearance in Twelve Mile Circle a few weeks ago. Back then I spoke of an ancient trust, on Burlington Island in the Delaware River. Swedes don’t get much attention for their colonial history in North America. The narrative generally focuses upon English, Spanish and French interests. Sometimes Dutch…

  • Ancient Trust

    I seem to have a little bit of a river island fixation going on recently. I started with Green River Island and now I’m featuring Burlington Island (map). Even so, I think it’s probably just these two articles, a coincidence actually. Burlington doesn’t have quite the pedigree of a Supreme Court decision like Green River…