Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • Should I Ban China?

    Twelve Mile Circle is about Geography, Geo-Oddities, Travel and the sharing of thoughts and ideas. Would it be ethical to ban 1.3 billion readers for the sins of a minuscule few? That would equal nearly 20% of the world’s population! The Problem China has become my website’s bane of existence. Internet Protocol addresses geo-locating to…

  • All Vowel Place Names

    I come across various language trivia lists on the Intertubes all the time. They cover a thousand different topics but some of them focus on words of unnatural length composed solely of vowels. It doesn’t take much to entertain me but you already knew that. They’re somewhat amusing but they do tend to stretch towards…

  • Magic Roundabout

    My childhood happened in a time before video games completely transformed the adolescent earth. Sure, we enjoyed a little screen time with those early Atari consoles but we also had plenty of non-electronic diversions too. I loved making intricate designs as they sprang forth from highly simplistic repetitive motions on a Spirograph. Those crazy geometric…

  • Islands Below Sea Level

    Are there any islands below sea level? The question seemed absurd on its surface when I noticed it lodged in my web logs in the form of a search engine query. However I’ve learned to not be so dismissive. I’ve uncovered increasingly obscure artifacts and encountered surprisingly unusual situations in the years I’ve written Twelve…

  • Ultralineamentum

    I follow the usual geography blogs each day like many of you probably do too. They all seem to have distinct personalities even if they cover the same subjects already blossoming in the popular media. I wouldn’t trade those blogs for anything. They’re informative and insightful, and I enjoy them. However, I wouldn’t try to…

  • Australia’s Longest Straight Line?

    Lines continue to fascinate me, both imaginary and real. I found myself pondering the website of Australian Rail Maps, looking at their Western Australia page. I’d heard about a specific segment crossing the hauntingly desolate Nullarbor Plain and I intended to investigate it further. It’s here, between kilometre 797 west of Ooldea (South Australia) and…

  • Colorado’s Paradox

    It’s a paradox. How does a search engine decide that my website is a good source of information on the naming of the tiny town of Paradox, Colorado? I’d mentioned it only one time in a most innocuous way. I’d been examining a kink in the boundary between Colorado and neighboring Utah. Back then I…

  • Åland Calling

    I suppose I can break my own rules. If I admit to being hypocritical, does that make me a marginally less contemptible hypocrite or at least a more self-aware one? Perhaps not, but that’s what’s going to happen on Twelve Mile Circle today. I’ve said repeatedly that I plan to combine reports of initial national…

  • Birch Syrup Geography

    I wandered into a shop in Talkeetna, a town of a few hundred souls in the interior of south central Alaskan (map). There I discovered an assortment of small plastic jugs with a strange and rare substance offered for sale: birch syrup. I’d never heard of this particular agricultural product before. Sure, I’ve consumed more…

  • My Travel Box – American Meridian Edition

    My Travel Box article led to more interest than I expected both from longstanding and recent readers. It proves once again that I have no idea what resonates with a larger audience. So I’ll continue to write about what I find personally interesting and hope that a few of you join me for the ride.…

Latest Comments

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

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