Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: Distance

  • Washington State Adventures

    I’m finally in the Pacific Northwest of the United States after several months of talking about it. Actually, I’ve been out here for awhile and auto-posting articles to Twelve Mile Circle that I wrote in advance. Could you tell I wasn’t writing in real-time? The next few articles will relate to my travels through various…

  • Northernmost Romans in Britain

    Romans occupied and controlled a large southern swath of the island of Great Britain as they expanded their empire. How far north, I wondered, did they extend their empire there before it began to contract? What was their high-water mark? Hadrian’s Wall The Romans arrived on Britain in the year 43 and would remain as…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • Same City Name Distance

    I’ve been experiencing an ongoing conundrum. I have a huge pile of potential topics to cover on Twelve Mile Circle but I never get around to using them. I seem to get diverted onto whatever topic happens to be on hand and I forget about those I’ve held in reserve. Occasionally I’ll take a look…

  • Longest Google Maps Routes

    [EDITOR’S NOTE: Google Maps changes its algorithms over time. Many of the solutions developed when the article was written in 2012 no longer work] I received an email message from 12MC reader Andrew a few days ago. He said that he and a friend have been playing a game using Google Maps. The rules are…

  • Long Distance

    I thought I would combine elements of several different articles to create something new. Counter-intuitive distances have long been a theme on 12MC. Great examples include Los Angeles located farther east than Reno and Glasgow located farther west than Madrid. Then I stirred-in an online tool used to create circles of user-specified radii on Google…

  • Natural Forces: Gravitation

    Let’s talk about gravity. No, not the physical property whereby objects attract with forces proportional to their masses, but instead the little town in Iowa. I stumbled upon Gravity, Iowa figuratively as I researched the recent Gravity Hills article. Gravity doesn’t have a gravity hill as far as I know so it didn’t elicit a…

  • Semi-Practical Exclaves Galore!

    I mentioned a semi-practical exclave in Australia a few days ago. This was a spot in New South Wales where a resident in an automobile could exit his neighborhood without ever leaving NSW. However, he could return only via Queensland. I noted somewhat tongue-in-cheek that the “…situation becomes very special, perhaps unique, meaning I didn’t…

  • Devil’s Highway

    Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred and sixty and six. — Revelation 13:18 Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia –- Fear of the number 666 A national highway in the western United States carried the “number of…