Twelve Mile Circle

  • Will the County Seat Move?

    In the United States counties are the primary administrative subdivisions of states and the county seats are towns that serve as the local center of government. There are plenty of notable variations and deviations from that model but as a general rule, states have counties with formally designated county seats. Government officials usually established county…

  • USA’s Worst Weather

    We’re #1! There are many times in one’s life when that’s a fantastic proclamation and a source of pride. It could be when a favorite sports team wins the big championship. Maybe it’s a university with a top-ranked academic department. Or perhaps it’s a city judged to be the best place to raise a family.…

  • Ushuaia

    I can find good geo-topics practically anywhere. Often I derive inspiration from anonymous Twelve Mile Circle visitors who sprinkle digital trails behind them as they travel along. Every one of us leaves fingerprints behind whenever we tunnel through the Intertubes. It’s innocuous for the most part. Generally we don’t think much about it as we…

  • Closer Than…

    There’s no overt or even covert intellectual discussion on Twelve Mile Circle today. In fact I won’t blame you at all if you choose to skip this post and come back on the weekend. I might do the same if it wasn’t already too late. I’m back to drawing lines again. I got fixated on…

  • Maps as Passwords

    I offer a tip of the hat to Geographic Travels for featuring an article from MSNBC called “Future online password could be a map.” However, it’s not necessary for me to repeat the contents of the blog post or the article here. They are interesting artifacts that you can examine on your own. The basic…

  • Almost Landlocked

    Trivia. Trick questions. Fun Stuff. I love a good, lazy Sunday. Landlocked, double landlocked, borderlocking and boundary crosses have occupied my thoughts at various moments over the years. However, what about places not landlocked, but just barely? We all have our favorite territories that touch the sea by the thinnest of margins. Which ones would…

  • Tangier Island on ESPN

    ESPN has been airing promotional videos featuring Tangier Island, a small marshy inhabited locale within Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The premise is that Tangier Island is the biggest (per capita) sports town in America. I’ve been getting some pretty impressive website traffic from Google as a result. For First Time Visitors: Welcome to…

  • Even More Unusual Signs

    It’s been about fourteen months since I posted an installment of odd signs that I’d encountered during my travels. I like unusual things whether they’re geo-oddities or mundane objects that seem out of whack. Occasionally I feel compelled to share them even if nobody else can summon the same level of enthusiasm. If they cause…

  • Northernmost Southern Hemispheric Glacier

    I discussed the southernmost glaciers in the northern hemisphere in the last installment and found some surprising answers. Today I take the opposite tack and examine the northernmost glaciers in the southern hemisphere. Let’s start again by reviewing the worldwide glacier map I discovered on the U.S. Geological Survey site. Maybe Cayambe Again? To recap…

  • Southernmost Northern Hemispheric Glacier

    My trip to Alaska got me thinking about snow, ice and glaciation. There were glaciers aplenty on the Kenai Peninsula but that’s not unexpected at sixty degrees north of the equator. Where, I wondered, was the southernmost glacier in the northern hemisphere? It’s not the first time my mind has wandered in this basic direction.…


Latest Comments

  1. Hi Mr. Howder — Just going from memory, I recall that your “rule” for counting a nation/state/county is “if I’m…

  2. Does anyone have actual music to the song – Tanaha ,Timpson. Bobo and Blair ?? It was recorded by Tex…