You probably think you know where things are. You don't. Most of us walk around with a mental map that is, quite frankly, a total mess. It’s not your fault—we’ve been staring at the Mercator projection since kindergarten, and that thing lies to you every single day. Greenland isn’t as big as Africa. Not even close. Africa is actually fourteen times larger.
Geography isn't just about memorizing capitals. It's about spatial reality. When you dig into difficult geography trivia, you start to realize that the world is way more counterintuitive than it looks on a screen.
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Think about London and New York. If you had to guess which one is further north, you’d probably say London. You’d be right. But do you know by how much? London is actually further north than any city in the continental United States. It sits at about 51 degrees north. That puts it on the same level as Calgary, Canada.
Meanwhile, Venice, Italy—the place you associate with sun-drenched canals and Aperol spritzes—is further north than Minneapolis. It’s true. The Gulf Stream does a massive amount of heavy lifting for Europe’s climate, masking the fact that the continent is shoved way further toward the pole than we realize. If the ocean currents ever shift significantly, Venice is going to feel a lot more like the Twin Cities.
Then there’s the South America shift. This is the one that ruins people during bar trivia. If you draw a line straight down from Jacksonville, Florida, you aren’t hitting the ocean. You’re hitting the west coast of South America. Almost the entire continent of South America is east of Miami. To get through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, you actually travel southeast. It feels wrong. It feels like the earth is broken. But that’s just how the tectonic plates decided to settle.
Borders That Make No Sense
Geography gets weird when humans get involved. Take the Diomede Islands. These two islands sit in the middle of the Bering Strait, between Alaska and Russia. They are only about 2.4 miles apart. You can see one from the other. But because the International Date Line runs right between them, Big Diomede (Russia) is 21 hours ahead of Little Diomede (USA).
You can literally look across a small patch of water and see "tomorrow."
And then there’s the madness of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau. This is a border situation in the Netherlands and Belgium that looks like someone spilled a bottle of ink on a map. There are Belgian enclaves inside the Netherlands, and then Dutch enclaves inside those Belgian enclaves. The border goes through houses. It goes through restaurants.
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For a long time, if a restaurant sat on the border, they’d have to move the tables to the other side of the room when one country’s closing time laws kicked in. It’s a logistical nightmare that makes for some of the most difficult geography trivia questions out there because the answer is basically "it depends on which foot you're standing on."
The "Closest To" Conundrums
Which U.S. state is closest to Africa?
Most people guess Florida. Or maybe North Carolina. It’s Maine. Specifically, a spot called Quoddy Head. Because of the way the Earth curves, that jagged little corner of New England reaches out toward the African coast more effectively than the Southern states do.
While we’re on the subject of the U.S., which state is the furthest north, south, east, and west?
- North: Alaska (obviously).
- South: Hawaii.
- West: Alaska.
- East: Alaska.
Wait, what? Yeah. Because the Aleutian Islands cross the 180-degree meridian, Alaska technically stretches into the Eastern Hemisphere. This makes it the easternmost state in the country by longitude. It’s a technicality, sure, but in the world of geography, technicalities are everything.
Mountains, Depressions, and Misplaced Peaks
Everyone knows Mount Everest is the highest mountain. But "highest" is a loaded word. If you measure from sea level, Everest wins at 29,032 feet. But if you measure from the center of the Earth, the winner is Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
Because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere—it’s an oblate spheroid that bulges at the equator—the summit of Chimborazo is actually closer to space than the summit of Everest. You’re essentially standing on the "farthest" point of the planet.
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And if you want to talk about the tallest mountain from base to peak? That’s Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Most of it is underwater. If you drained the Pacific, Mauna Kea would dwarf Everest by over 4,000 feet.
On the flip side, we have the Dead Sea. It’s the lowest point on the surface of the Earth, sitting at 1,414 feet below sea level. But here’s the kicker: the deepest canyon in the world isn't the Grand Canyon. It’s the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet. It’s over three miles deep in some spots. It makes the Grand Canyon look like a shallow ditch.
The Desert Misconception
When I say "desert," you think of sand dunes and camels. But a desert is scientifically defined by precipitation, not temperature. This means Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. It’s a polar desert. It receives less than two inches of precipitation a year.
The Sahara is only the third largest desert, trailing behind the Arctic and Antarctic.
This leads to some wild facts. There is more ice in Antarctica than there is water in the Atlantic Ocean. If it all melted, global sea levels would rise by about 200 feet. Florida would basically vanish. So would London, New York, and Shanghai.
Why Your Map Is Actually Lying
Most of our confusion comes from the Mercator projection. Created in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator, it was designed for navigation. It keeps the rhumb lines straight, which is great for sailors, but it distorts the size of landmasses as you get closer to the poles.
This is why Greenland looks the same size as Africa on most classroom maps. In reality, you could fit Greenland into Africa about 14 times. You could fit the entire United States, China, India, and most of Europe inside Africa, and you’d still have room left over.
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South America is also twice the size of Europe. Brazil alone is larger than the contiguous United States. When you start looking at the "True Size" of countries, your entire perspective of global power and importance starts to shift. Geography is as much about psychology as it is about rocks and water.
Islands and Invisible Boundaries
Australia is wider than the moon. The moon is about 2,113 miles in diameter. Australia, from east to west, is roughly 2,500 miles.
Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto. Think about that. A single country on our planet has more square mileage than a (former) planet in our solar system. Russia also spans 11 time zones. When a family in Kaliningrad is sitting down for breakfast, a family in Vladivostok is basically heading to bed.
Then you have France. France has the most time zones of any country in the world. Twelve of them. Not because France is huge, but because it still holds territories all over the globe, from French Guiana in South America to islands in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Actionable Steps for Mastering Geography
If you want to actually get good at this and stop falling for the usual traps, you have to change how you look at the world.
- Ditch the Flat Map: Spend time with a physical globe. Or at least use Google Earth. Seeing the world in 3D is the only way to understand the true distances between points, especially near the poles.
- Study the "True Size": Use tools like The True Size Of website to drag countries around and see how they actually compare when you account for Mercator distortion.
- Learn the 45th Parallel: Use the 45th parallel (halfway between the equator and the pole) as a benchmark. Look at which cities sit above and below it. You’ll be shocked to see that Montreal is further south than Paris.
- Focus on Water, Not Just Land: Most of the weirdest geography happens where the land meets the sea. Study the major straits—Malacca, Hormuz, Gibraltar—and the weird islands that sit in them.
- Question Your Assumptions: Every time you think a country is "directly south" of another, check a map. Usually, there’s a tilt you didn't account for.
Geography is a living, breathing thing. It's not just a list of facts; it's the physical stage where all of human history happens. If you don't understand the stage, you'll never truly understand the play.