Geography lesson

[ybbor]

snopes is unusally empty on this e-mail...

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Canada
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.

Canada has more lakes than any other country, but this is a very different statement...

 

[Sashie VII]

Different indeed. Is it a valid one?

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Different indeed. Is it a valid one?

I doubt it somehow, but haven't been able to disprove it.

@Sashie: I can't find one in Africa...

 

[Sashie VII]

Hm..I thought it very unlikely to find a 'Rome' in Africa..but that there has been at least one on every other habitable continent is quite something too eh

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Hm..I thought it very unlikely to find a 'Rome' in Africa..but that there has been at least one on every other habitable continent is quite something too eh

Perhaps there is a Rome in South Africa?

 

[Truronian]

The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean.

Untrue according to wikipedia. The water a hundred miles out is a mixture of salt and fresh water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River

(I could be on snopes)

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Perhaps there is a Rome in South Africa?

Here we go: Roma, South Africa

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Nope. Comes from the Carthaginian word for the land, which I think was Espana, which means Land of the Rabbits.

More info from Wikipedia:

The origin of the word Hispania appears to be Punic, the Phoenician language of colonizing Carthage. The etymologist Eric Partridge (Origins) finds it in the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis, which strongly hints of an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now lost[1].

The Catholic Encyclopedia reports, "Some derive it from the Punic word tsepan, 'rabbit,' basing the opinion on the evidence of a coin of Galba, on which Hispania is represented with a rabbit at her feet, and on Strabo, who calls Spain 'the land of rabbits'" [2]. Others attribute a Punic connotation of "dark", "hidden", "lost", or "remote."

One version states that the name comes from the Phoenician word I-shphanim, which means literally "from or about hyraxes" (shphanim is the plural of shaphán, Hyrax syriacus). Lacking a better term, the Phoenicians used that word for rabbits, an unknown animal for them but very common in the peninsula. Another interpretation of the same term would be Hi-shphanim, "Rabbits' Island" (or "Hyraxes' Island").

None of these etymologies is truly satisfactory.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Jericho is aparently the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the world. I've read this in Mircea Eliade's book also.
Damascus, Syria is close though. But it's wrong.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The reference to interstates needing straight stretches for runways is false as well.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'm pretty sure that the Interstate one is true, its one straight mile for every five, I can believe that. It makes sense with the Interstate system's true purpose, too.

 

[LLXerxes]

"Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined."

That is an amazing fact

I thought you always boasted that as a Canadian.

The Chicago fact is stunning, in a way where you shouldn't be suprised but you still are.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I'm pretty sure that the Interstate one is true, its one straight mile for every five, I can believe that. It makes sense with the Interstate system's true purpose, too.

I couldn't find the article, but I remember Snopes nixing it. Besides, I haven't seen a stretch of interstate a mile long that is straight enough.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

I thought you always boasted that as a Canadian.

What on earth are you talking about?

 

[ybbor]

I couldn't find the article, but I remember Snopes nixing it. Besides, I haven't seen a stretch of interstate a mile long that is straight enough.

found it

 

[ybbor]

okay, I'm gonna try to do some fact-finding. [okay, I can't do everything right now, but here's some stuff]
green=true
yellow=unsure
red=false

More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in
Alaska.

USA coastline: 19,924 km
Alaska: 6,640 miles (about 11,070 km)

The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen
supply.

It's hard to find a place for that (my guess is if I found it anywhere it would be inspired by this e-mail), so I'll go for the next best thing: total tree coverage
world forest coverage: 3,952 million hectares (about 9.765 million acres)
Amazon area: 1.2 billion acres

so the amazon makes up about 12% of the world's forest coverage. since the Amazon is probably much denser than most forests, 20% sounds a resonable estimate though, so I'll play it safe without knowing the real number and say unconfirmed (but probable)

The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that,
more
than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip
fresh
water out of the ocean.

false. It's Brackish water which is classified different than fresh water.

The volume of water in the Amazon river is
greater
than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three
times
the flow of all rivers in the United States.

Amazon river discharge: 219,000 m³/s

river list

Brahmaputra discharge (in m^3/s): 43,900
Congo: 41,800
Yangtze: 31,900
Orinoco: 30,000
Paraná: 25,700
Yenisei:19,600
Lena: 17,100
Mississippi: 16,200

Total: 226,200

very, very close, but no.
I can't find a number for total US river discharge, but it doesn't seem that hard to believe

 

[Perfection]

YAY! Skepticism!

Good work guys!

USA coastline: 19,924 km
Alaska: 6,640 miles (about 11,070 km)

Never mix coastline figure from different sources as the value is often dependant on the methodology (because of the Richardson effect).

 

[Truronian]

Rome
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome,
Italy
in 133 B.C.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm

 

[Truronian]

Brazil
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilwood

(PS, sorry about the consecutive posts, it wouldn't let me edit)