Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • Ferry Hopping

    I’m completely humbled by the response to the recent “How Many Islands in the USA Require Ferry Travel” article. I found 64 islands matching the criteria and stood back smugly until user-after-user uncovered additional instances that I’d overlooked. The number of islands currently stands at 77. It wouldn’t surprise me if it continued to grow.…

  • Triple Letter – Canada

    Recently I posted an article that described all of the places in the United States where the county seat, the county, and the state all began with the same letter. I considered seven instances where each of the three levels of government had completely different names to be particularly “outstanding.” For example, one was Gibson,…

  • Africa’s Lowpoint

    I was poking around the CIA World Factbook (doesn’t everyone?) and came across an interesting page that listed “miscellaneous geographic information of significance not included elsewhere.” That’s wonderful, I thought, a page of international odds-and-ends that didn’t fit within the book’s prescribed format. Yes, I live for moments like that. It listed little tidbits on…

  • Oldest Continuous Businesses

    I enjoyed Wikipedia’s List of Oldest Companies when I bounced onto it randomly, and of course it included a geographic component. Using the list, I examined claims from various parts of the world. However, let’s consider that these represent claims. References and websites for individual companies often hedge their bets. They used qualifiers such as…

  • Latitudinal Border Station Extremes

    So I’m not sure the title adequately conveyed what I’m trying to describe. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better concise title to replace it either. Conceptually, I wanted to know the northernmost and southernmost places in the world and in the United States where one could cross an international border by automobile via a…

  • Pennsylvanians are From Mars, Texans are From Venus

    I keep a close eye on the geographic characteristics of Twelve Mile Circle visitors, which seems natural for a geo-oddity website. I also generate article topics from viewer anomalies. For example, I never knew about Mars in Pennsylvania (map) until a Martian visitor, one from a spot north of Pittsburgh as it turned out, jumped…

  • Shortest International Borders

    It seemed obvious to me that I should have written an article about the shortest international border a long time ago. Well, apparently I’d overlooked it. So let’s rectify that oversight right now. The omission actually provided a benefit. I’d featured just about every one of these places in a previous Twelve Mile Circle articles…

  • No Names and Nameless

    The article on Public Streets seemed generate more than the usual amount of interest and lots of great comments, as well as a hint of familiarity. Input from loyal reader David Overton sent me down an interesting tangent. He mentioned No Name Street, which he believed might be “another contender for ‘laziest street name’”. He…

  • International Capitals in the USA

    The capital of a nation is often its most important city, or certainly one that citizens would recognize by name if not. Place that exact name into another nation and its significance would almost always drop. I wondered if I could find the name of every other capital city within the physical boundaries of the…

  • Impressive Pedestrian Bridges

    Plans change. I gamble when I choose to mull over a thought and allow it to percolate in my mind. Sometimes the delay results in a better article. Other times, events overtake ideas not completely formed yet. Loyal reader “Rhodent” and I were communicating by email about a potential offshoot of “NOT as the Crow…