Category: Borders

  • Infrequent Crossings, US-Mexico

    Things have settled down on Twelve Mile Circle after a brief weather disruption. I’m able to return to obscure United States border crossings. This second part focuses on the southern border with Mexico. So I consulted the same source that I used when I explored Canadian border crossing facts, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau…

  • Infrequent Crossings, US-Canada

    Twelve Mile Circle loves its borders, and probably none more than the border between Canada and the United States (for instance). The statistics are impressive: 119 border crossings; 39,254,000 trips by Canadians into the United States in 2009; and nearly $500 million in international trade passing every day on the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario…

  • Busy Days

    The Twelve Mile Circle audience seems to enjoy little contests or puzzles interspersed within the usual healthy dose of geo-oddity goodness. Actually, sometimes I think the community relishes interactive topics even more than the purely informational ones based upon sheer number of comments posted to each article. Hopefully today will provide another opportunity for that.…

  • Hazy Hedge Maze Memories

    I poked around that place where Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands share a common border, better known as the BEDENL tripoint, using Google Maps satellite view the other day. I noticed an interesting topiary feature. Labyrint Drielandenpunt I found a hedge maze! I’ve seen them called garden mazes, labyrinths and various other terms, too. They…

  • Rama Setu (Adam’s Bridge)

    Articles often influence new 12MC articles that I never anticipated originally, as is the case today. Actually, this one come from a comment by “Snabelabe” on All Ways – Every Cardinal Direction. I fixated on a link embedded in the comment, a list of countries and territories by border/area ratio. I always gravitate towards extremes…

  • All Ways – Every Cardinal Direction

    I put a little throwaway comment at the tail-end of my recent All Ways South article. There I demonstrated that someone could travel due south from Missouri into each of its eight neighboring states from at least one point along their shared borders. As I thought about it I noted, “Come to think of it,…

  • All Ways South

    I noticed a claim on the Intertubes, primarily because someone using a search engine landed on Twelve Mile Circle seeking more information. It asserted that one can travel due south from Missouri to enter each state that borders it. That doesn’t seem logical so that’s why the claim attracts attention. Missouri and Tennessee are the…

  • John Day’s Day

    Bill Williams’ Fingerprints appeared on the Twelve Mile Circle about a year ago. Mr. Williams was “one of the classic mountain men of the old west”. His name carried forward to various geographic features throughout Arizona, as I noted at the time. This inspired longtime reader Pfly to comment, “This post makes me think about…

  • Mardela to Delmar

    I’ve expressed my enjoyment of geographic portmanteaus previously. These are place names created by mashing together two or more other place names. Delmarva is a perfect example. The Delmarva Peninsula on the east coast of the United States is bound on the east by the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west…

  • Loudoun Wine Adventure

    Fair warning. This article is going to resemble a travelogue more than a discussion of geo-oddities. I figure I can change the rules occasionally for self-indulgent reasons so I hope you don’t mind. Come back in a couple of days if you’re more a fan of the usual content on Twelve Mile Circle. The in-laws…