The Basement Geographer

Curling Stones: A Precious Resource

2012-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Copyright: J. Durnan, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/988485. Licensedfor reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

Ailsa Craig is the little white dot at the south end of the Firth ofClyde.

Ailsa Craig. A formidable,solitary, dome-shaped rock island lying in Scotland’s Firthof Clyde 16 km (10 mi) off the Ayrshire coast. Uninhabited since 1990 (though the lighthouseand a few buildings remain, and sightseeing boats makes regular trips), it’snow a nature preserve and the small island is a haven for seals, puffins,gulls, and around40 000 gannets. It’s also home toone of the rarest, hardest-to-find materials on Earth. Ailsa Craig, you see, has producedapproximately 60to 70 percent of the world’s curling stones currently in use.

The other side ofAilsa Craig, where granite boulders are harvested every few decades in order toprovide material to make curling stones. Source: baaker2009, http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbieredball/4944907639/. Licensedunder the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) licence.

Source: K. Funakoshi, http://www.flickr.com/photos/trektrack/305673357/. Licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

Curling stones, you say? As in curling, the ice-basedtarget sport developed by the Scots, adored by Canadians (it’s the third-mostpopular sport on Canadian television behind ice hockey and gridiron football,and 1.2million of the world’s 1.5 million curlers live in Canada), and looked uponwith wonder and bemusement by most of the rest of the world. It’s not often that sport crosses paths withgeology, but when your sport is built around quarried granite boulders, it’s afairly major intersection.

The large stones used to play the game are made of granite,and not just any old type of granite can be used to make these 17-20 kg (38-44lb) rocks. During gameplay, the stonescrash against each other repeatedly. Used over and over again for years on end (20-30years is a healthy lifespan), an average curling stone sees thousands ofsuch collisions over its lifespan, meaning that the type of granite used has tobe extremely durable, non-porous, and shatter-resistant. Such rock is extremely hard to come to come by,and traditionally the only two suitable types of granite for curling, blue honeand common green, were only found onAilsa Craig.

Ailsa Craig is an exposedvolcanic plug sticking out of the ocean, formed around 500 million yearsago. Much of the rock is composed ofcertain types of micro-granite, a highly-interlocked, finely-grained mineralstructure free of quartz, specifically blue hone and common green. Blue hone isconsidered to be the highest quality granite of the two because of its lowwater absorption (an important attribute when running on ice) as opposed to commongreen. Blue honeis used as the bottom part of the stone that runs along the ice (the runningband) while common green composes the main body of the stone.

The issue with quarrying rock from Ailsa Craig is that italso serves as a privately-ownednature preserve leased by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Active blasting of rock at the island’sgranite quarry has been bannedfor many years on the island. Thereare two main manufacturers of curling stones: Kays of Scotland and Canada Curling Stone. Kays havean exclusive agreement with the island’s owner, the Marquess of Ailsa, toharvest the loose boulders still extant on the island, most recently removingrock in1989 and in 2002. The most recent harvest removed 1 500 tonnesof common green and 200 tonnes of blue hone – enough to make about 8 000stones, which would be enough to supply 500 rinks – a decade’s worth ofbusiness for the company. Some of theslabs of granite can be seen in their workyard on GoogleStreet View here.

With only Kays allow to harvest from Ailsa Craig, if you’reCanada Curling Stone, Kays’ main competitor, it’s especially important to finda new location that provides suitable granite. The search has been on for many years around the world to find suitablereplacement granite, but the only place found so far is on the LlŷnPeninsula in north Wales at the Trefor quarry. Not only do Canada Curling Stone have the exclusive rightto harvest Treforgranite, but the supply of rock available is far greater. Trefor is more durable than Ailsa Craig bluehone and so is better suited for crashing and banging, but Ailsa Craig bluehone is less porous and better suited for sliding on ice. Today, manyrinks are moving to a sort of hybrid stone: stones with traditional AilsaCraig blue hone running band inserts (the smoothest, least-porous type ofgranite for gliding along the ice) attached to Trefor bodies and strike bands(the middle portion of the stone that collides with other stones) along theoutside. A hybrid stone as such canextend the lifespan of the stone to 40-50 years.

The Trefor quarry in north Wales.

It’s important for curling clubs, especially in smallercommunities where funds at the local curling clubs may be limited, to havestones that can last a long time as purchasing new sets of stones can be quite expensive(a new quality set of 16 Trefor stones costs aroundCDN$10 000, and even the cheap ones range in the CDN$6-7 000 range). Stones can be repaired to a degree (also notcheap), but only so much can be done before the integrity of the stone is lost. With the continued growth of the sport aroundthe world dueto its exposure via the Olympics, it should be interesting to track thiscottage industry and to see if any other companies try to enter the marketplacewith their own supplies of special granite.

On a side note, the Marquess of Ailsa listedthe island for sale in May of 2011. The price? £2.75 million (US$4.34 million).

Further Reading

Canadian Curling Association (2012). The History of Curling. Available at http://www.curling.ca/start-curling/the-history-of-curling/. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Canada Curling Stone Co. (2012). Granite Types. Available at http://www.canadacurlingstone.on.ca/granite_types.php. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Kays of Scotland (2012). About Us. Available at http://www.kaysofscotland.co.uk/about.cfm. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Maybole.org (2002). Ailsa Craig Photogallery. Maybole Home Page. Available at http://www.maybole.org/photogallery/ailsacraig/ailsacraig2.htm. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Mount, H. (2011). Wanted: One very wealthy twitcher to buy this £2.5m island ruled bybirds. Daily Mail, 4 May 2011. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383298/Ailsa-Craig-One-wealthy-twitcher-wanted-buy-2-5m-island-ruled-birds.html. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Roach, J. (2004). Puffins Return to Scottish Island Famous for Curling Stones. NationalGeographic News, 27 October 2004. Available at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_curling_stones.html. Accessed 21 February 2012.

Stouwdam, H. (2010). Notjust any rock: curling stones' special granite comes from Scotland. NRCHandelsblad, 17 February 2010. Available at http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/Features/article2485285.ece. Accessed 21 February 2012.

East Africa: The Next Continent

2012-02-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Africa is literally being torn apart at the seams as we speak; not by war, but by plate tectonics. The east coast of Africa is slowly breaking away from the main body of the continent at the rate of an inch per year as upwelling magma pushes up into thecontinental crust above, stretching it to the bursting point. In time, this will result in a brand-new tectonic plate and with it brand-new continent. The new plate being formed has been designated the Somali Plate, and not only carries with it most of Africa’s east coast but also the island of Madagascar (Madagascar separated from the mainland of Africa approximately 88 million years ago in aseparate process, having actually been attached to India more recently than Africa) and most of the western Indian Ocean. The (proto-) plate carrying the remainder of the original African plate is/will be called the Nubian Plate.

The African and Somaliplates as they stand today. Note thatthe junction of the Arabian, African, and Somali plates actually lies inlandrather than where the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden meet. Source: E. Gaba, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tectonic_plates_boundaries_detailed-en.svg. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic licence.

The EastAfrican Rift (known to many as the Great Rift Valley) is the zone alongwhich the Somali and Nubian plates (the future continents of Somalia and Nubia)are splitting. The rift is markedobviously the presence of numerous volcanoes, depressions, and lakes. In time, the chunk of land occupied by modern-daySomalia, Kenya, Tanzania and large portions of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Mozambique,and Malawi will sail away into the Indian Ocean just like Madagascar. With this separation, a new ocean will formbetween the new continent on the Somali Plate and the rest of Africa on theNubian Plate. The new ocean would be a potentialextension of the Red Sea, which lies in the divergence between the Africanand Arabian plates. It is believed that perhapsas soon as 10 million years from now (a mere moment or two in geologicaltime), the entire rift will have been flooded, separating the easternmostportion of Africa into an entirely new continent. As the African Plate slowly ruptures, variousdepressions and faults within the East African Rift have already been filled inby some of the world’s largest and deepest lakes: Turkana, Albert, Victoria, Tanganyika,Rukwa, Malawi/Nyasa.

Beyond Mozambique, the southernportion of the rift has yet to truly form; whether or not the new continentends up taking pieces of South Africa with it, for example, has yet to bedetermined. What we do know mostdefinitely is that the first separation of the land mass has already begun atthe north end of the rift, Djibouti. Thetiny country is based around the Gulf of Tadjoura, abasin at the west end of the Gulf of Aden, itself an arm of the Indian Ocean;the gulf gives Djibouti its distinctive ‘C’-shape. This small incision into the Africancontinent is thefirst opening of the new water body that will separate Nubia from Somalia,although it should be noted that this is along the Somali Plate’s boundary withthe Arabian Plate rather than the African Plate, which lies slightly to thewest. This crack will meet up at some point with the rift coming in from the RedSea and proceed southward.

Just inland from the gulf is Lake Assal,whose shores constitute the lowest point of land on the African continent, 155 m(509 ft) above sea level. Separatedfrom the Gulf of Tadjoura by a small gap less than 5 km (3 mi) in length andonly around 150 m (485 ft) in height, the lake will almost assuredly becomejoined to the gulf in the coming thousands of years. In fact, Lake Assal wasalready joined to the ocean 80 000 years ago previous to the most recentsea level drop, and is still connected to the ocean via subterranean aquifers.

Rifting of thelandscape above the saline shores of Lake Assal (in background). Source: Rolfcosar, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lac_Assal.jpg. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence.

Lake Assal lies within the extremely hot and arid Afar Triangle, thetectonic triple junctionwhere three different plates (African, Somali, and Arabian) are all pullingaway from each other, resulting in this area essentially collapsing into the formingchasm. Already, the continental crustbeneath the Afar Triangle is lessthan half of its original thickness (about 20 km or 12 mi), and majorsurfaces ruptures are readily noticeable. The Ethiopian portion of the triangular depression is riddled withvolcanoes (the lava which erupts from one of the volcanoes, Erta Ale, is basaltic, moretypical of those in spreading mid-ocean ridges rather than of continentalvolcanoes; just another indication that the ocean is on its way). Perhaps the most visible evidence of thesplitting of landmasses is further south in the depression at the volcano knownas Dabbahu. In 2005, a 500-metre-longcrack in the surface opened up due to the formation and uplift of a solidifiedmagma dike 60 km (37 mi) long in just a matter of days (along with the magmauplift, the eruption produced a swarm of 163earthquakes). At this rate, thisparticular crack will reach the Red Sea in about 4 million years from now,although cracks will likely come in from the other direction as well beforethen; theRed Sea will begin pouring in from the north end in about 1 million years.

Further Reading

Campbell, M. (2009). Giantcrack in Africa formed in just days. New Scientist, 4 November 2009. Available at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18114-giant-crack-in-africa-formed-in-just-days.html. Accessed 23 February 2012.

Daoud, M.A. et al. (2011). Young rift kinematics in the Tadjoura rift,western Gulf of Aden, Republic of Djibouti. Tectonics 30: TC1002.

Haddok, E. (2008). Birthof an Ocean: The Evolution of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. ScientificAmerican, 29 September 2008. Available at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=birth-of-an-ocean&page=2. Accessed 23 February 2012.

Lemaux II, J. et al. (2002). Location of theNubia-Somalia boundary along the Southwest Indian Ridge. Geology30(4): 339-342.

LiveScience (2009). Giant crack in Africa may create a new ocean. MSNBC,3 November 2009. Available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33605604/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T0Z9SdnNjDU. Accessed 23 February 2012.

University of California Museum of Paleontology (2009). Where did all ofMadagascar's species come from? Understanding Evolution, October2009. Available at http://www.webcitation.org/5xIlRolGu. Accessed 23 February 2012.

Verkhoyansk vs. Oymyakon: The Battle for the Title of ‘Coldest Town on Earth’

2012-02-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

Going back to our discussion of geographic poles last week, there’s another pair of poles that warrant mentioning, namely the ‘Poles of Cold’: the places on Earth where the coldest temperatures have been recorded. As it’s impossible to measure the temperature of every single location on Earth at once, the closest one can get to identifying the exact location of the Poles of Cold is by examining the coldest reliably recorded temperatures at weather stations. The southern pole is easy to identify: the Russian research station of Vostok recorded a deadly low of 89.2°C (−128.6°F) in July 1983; the coldest temperature ever recorded on the planet. While there may be colder places in Antarctica, we can’t know for sure due to the lack of weather stations with long-term databases in the interior of East Antarctica, and so Vostok holds the title relatively uncontested.

The northern Pole of Cold, however, is a differentmatter. Even with the relative abundanceof weather stations in Siberia compared to Antarctica, the title is up forgrabs depending upon the definition one is looking for. Believe it or not, there are two Siberiantowns that actually battle each other over the honour of being the coldestpermanently inhabited place on the planet.

Verkhoyansk,thethird-small incorporated town in all of Russia, lies in the northernreaches of Russia’s Sakha Republic on the Yana River about 635 km (395mi) north of the Sakha capital of Yakutsk(the world’s coldest major city at just under 300 000 people and an averageJanuary high temperature of −36.1°C or −33.0°F), traces its origin to 1638 as aCossack fort, and was used during the late czarist era as a place of political exile. Here, the coldest temperature reading evertaken at a weather station in the Northern Hemisphere occurred on 15 January1885: a deadly −67.8°C (−90.0°F).

The monument erectedto the Pole of Cold in Verkhoyansk. Source:Becker, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Werchojansk_K%C3%A4ltepoldenkmal_II.JPG.

The village of Oymyakonon the KolymaHighway (the Road of Bones), less than half the population of Verkhoyanskand located 625 km (385 mi) to the southeast, is the other claimant to thetitle (Oymyakon, oddly enough, translates to ‘unfreezing water’, a reference tonearby hot springs), with a lowtemperature of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) recorded on 6 February 1933, justbarely higher than the Verkhoyansk figure. The measurement is considered to be more accurate than the Verkhoyanskfigure due to the use of a mercury thermometer rather than a spirit thermometer,which has a margin of error of about 0.2°C – just enough to make the differencebetween the two figures negligible. Frighteningly,Oymyakon’s lone school (which only closes for operation when the temperaturefalls below −52°C (−62°F) has onlyhad indoor plumbing since 2008. Trapped between two mountains, cold airs is funnelled directly throughthe town in winter (by contrast, the air funneled through here in summer iswarm and temperatures climb into the upper plus-twenties Celsius; Verkhoyanskhas a similar turnaround in temperature).

With the lowest temperature recorded in the NorthernHemisphere thus being a virtual tie, perhaps the question of which towndeserves the title of ‘Pole of Cold’ is best decided by which of the two placesis colder year-in, year-out, in which case the title would go to Oymyakon,where the averagelow January temperature is −49.8°C (−57.6°F) compared to −48.9°C (−56.0°F)in Verkhoyansk (an opinion evidently sharedby the World Meteorological Organization and the majority of Russian climatologists). Regardless, the difference is small enoughthat it’s safe to say both places are likely within their right to considerthemselves the joint champions of this statistic. On any given day during the northern winter, almostinvariably Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk occupythe top two spots on the list of coldest weather stations.

*Note: the −71.2°C(−96.2°F) given in the above video is a non-weather station measurement; the weatherstation itself lies in a valley to the east.

So what do people do in Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon to supportthemselves? Mainlyreindeer breeding, hunting, and fishing for subsistence (the diet is almostexclusively reindeer meat, horse meat, and milk) as there is a rather limitedjob market. Everyone is clad in locallyharvested furs when going outside in winter; even high-end synthetic fibreshave a hard time holding up. When temperaturesare this cold, glasses can’t be worn since they would immediately freeze toyour face. Mobile phones (or rather, handheldsatellite phones, since there is no pretty well no wireless coverage in anydirection for hundreds of kilometres in this area of the world) are rendereduseless. Coal is used for heat andpower, and bonfiresoften have to be lit underneath of heavy machinery to keep the diesel fuelinside from freezing. That doesn’t stoptravel companies from offeringtours to Verkhoyansk and toOymyakon in the middle of winter, as there are tourists who make thejourney simply to experience what it’s like to be in a place that cold. Inaddition, they are often taken on tours of local farms and museums and get toexperience ice fishing firsthand (and they get to perform experiments like throwinghot water in the air and watching it come down as ice). As well, there’s always an opportunity totake a dip in Oymyakon’s eponymous hot spring when the air temperature is inthe minus-fifties Celsius.

Further Reading

Berg, R. (2010). Lifein extreme cold around the world. BBC News, 7 January 2010. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8445831.stm. Accessed 19 February 2012.

Bochkarev, B. (2009). What is the standard tour to the Pole of Cold? Travel time, activities,accommodations, prices?. AskYakutia.com, 25 October 2009. Available at http://askyakutia.com/2009/10/ordinary-tour-oymyakon-poleofcold-siberia-russia/. Accessed 19 February 2012.

Bochkarev, B. (2010). Activity tips: What to do in Oymyakon? Part I – Tomtor. AskYakutia.com,25 November 2010. Available at http://askyakutia.com/2010/11/activity-tips-what-to-do-in-oymyakon-poleofcold-yakutiasiberia-russia/. Accessed 19 February 2012.

ClimateTemp.info (2011). ClimateTemp.info. Available at http://www.climatetemp.info/. Accessed 19 February 2012.

Trivedi, B.P. (2004). Life Is a Chilling Challenge in Subzero Siberia. NationalGeographic News, 12 May 2004. Availableat http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0512_040512_tvoymyakon.html. Accessed 19 February 2012.

World Meteorological Organization (2012). Northern Hemisphere: Lowest Temperature. WorldWeather/Climate Extremes Website. Available at http://wmo.asu.edu/northern-hemisphere-lowest-temperature. Accessed 19 February 2012.

Yakutiatravel Co. Ltd. (2010). Visit to Pole of Cold “Verkhoyansk”. Available at http://yakutiatravel.com/en/the-pole-of-cold/visit-to-pole-of-cold-verkhoyansk.html. Accessed 19 February 2012.

The Great Wall of Gorgan

2012-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Great Wall of China is the longest defensive wall ever constructed in history, as most people are likely aware. To find the next longest wall, you have to travel across Central Asia to the Caspian Sea and Iran’s province of Golestan near the Turkmen border, where the (at least) 195 km (121 mi)-long, 6-10 m (13-33 ft) wide Great Wall of Gorgan is found. Today, much of the ancient wall lies in ruins, having been eroded over time and looted for valuable building materials, but in its day the wall was one of the more impressive edifices ever built. Its origins and functions were shrouded in mystery for centuries (the actual full extent of the wall was only rediscovered in 1999), and archaeologists are still uncovering long-forgotten pieces of information about the wall.

The wall, whose point of origin is underwater, emerges fromthe Caspian Sea north of the Gorgan River at the town of Gomishan and proceedswest-northwest into the eastern Elburz mountains, where it vanishes. One of the things that differentiated theGreat Wall of Gorgan from the Great Wall of China is that the Gorgan wall wasbuilt from tensof millions of standard-sized loess bricks fired instandardised kilns as opposed to the hodge-podge of earth, tiles, brick,wood, mud, and stone of the Chinese wall. These red bricks give the Great Wall of Gorgan one of its manynicknames, the ‘Red Snake’ (another prominent nickname for the wall is Sadd-i-Iskandar (Alexander’s Barrier),linking it to the legendary Gatesof Alexander barrier supposedly built across the Caucasus by Alexander theGreat).

The approximate routeof the Great Wall of Gorgan.

As opposed to the watchtowers of the Great Wall of China,the Great Wall of Gorgan employed fortresses, 33 in total, at intervals ofbetween 10 and 50 kilometres, mostly square in shape and likewise built uponraised square mounds or platforms. Thesefortresses, built from the exact same bricks as the wall they anchored,were often massive outposts spreading a dozen hectares or more in size andcontaining multiple large buildings; it is estimated by archaeologists that anywherebetween 15 000 and 36 000 soldiers may have been stationed along thewall. The Great Wall of Gorgan was morethan simply a defence wall, but a way to engineer the surroundinglandscape. Most of the north side of thewall is accompanied by a5m (17 ft)-deep ditch designed to bring water from a reservoir constructedin the highlands down into the Caspian basin. The ditch accomplished many tasks, including irrigation; primarily, itprovided the water to fire the kilns needed to make the bricks for buildingand/or repairing the wall. At least fivesmaller canals entered the main ditch to ensure the water supply in the ditchremained constant in the arid landscape.

A look at a section of the ‘Red Snake’. The aqueduct following the wall is readilyvisible. The wall itself is on the southflank, with the platform of one of the wall’s 33 forts in the centre of theimage.

At one time, it was believed that the Gorgan wall could have been the longest single wallin the entire world at the time of its construction (with the qualifierthat the Great Wall of China was a fractured series of various fortificationsin various states of disrepair at any given point in time until the 15^thcentury), with somehypotheses indeed placing it in the time of Alexander (the 4^thcentury BC), most scholars placing the wall’s origin somewhere in the 2^ndor 1^st century BC, and some opting for a 6^th century ADdate under the Sassanidemperor Khosrau I (Anushirvan). Initial archaeological explorations in 1971postulated that wall was of Parthian origin (theParthian Empire lasted from 247 BC to 224 AD) and was later repaired andreinforced during the Sassanid period, likely around the 6^th centuryAD. 2005 radiocarbon dating taken by anIranian-British team placed the wall’s construction date conclusivelyin the 5th-early 6th century AD. Today,it is believed that the wall was constructed by the Sassanids to keep out Hunnicand Hephtalite (White Hun)invadersfrom sweeping in from the north by closing off the entire plain stretchingfrom the Caspian to the Elburz. Anyinvaders that did break through the walls would be immediately cut off bySassanid cavalry stationed inside the nearest fortress. Trappedbetween the cavalry on their flanks and the Gorgan wall to the north, theinvaders would have nowhere to go, resulting (ideally) in their ultimatefailure.

With the Sassanid Empire so well-guarded on the northeastflank thanks to the ingenious design of the Great Wall of Gorgan, it shouldcome as no surprise that the empire’s fall came from the other direction; afterwestern portions of the empire were left devastated by attacks from the EasternRoman (Byzantine) Empire in the early 7^th century, the weakenedSassanids were no match for the impending invasions of ArabMuslim groups beginning in 632; by 644 the Sassanid Empire was no more.

Further Reading

Farrokh, K. (2009). The Great Wall of Gorgan. 20 June2009. Available at http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/news/the-great-wall-of-gorgan/. Accessed 18 February 2012.

Iran Review (2010). The Red Snake: The Great Wall of Gorgan. 15 June 2010. Available at http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/The_Red_Snake_The_Great_Wall_of_Gorgan.htm. Accessed 18 February 2012.

Nokandeh, J. et al.(2006). Linear Barriers of NorthernIran: The Great Wall of Gorgan and the Wall of Tammishe. Iran44: 121-173.

Omrani Rekavandi, H. etal. (2008). The Enigma of the RedSnake. Current World Archaeology 27: 12-22. Available at http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/staff/supporting_files/esauer/iranian_walls.pdf(full colour) and http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa-2/world-news/the-enigma-of-the-red-snake.htm(text). Accessed 18 February 2012.

Google Sightseeing: Napoleon in Exile

2012-02-17T19:25:00.000-08:00

For TBG's latest article over at the almighty Google Sightseeing, we take a look at the various residences that played host to the deposed emperor Napoleon during his two exiles: the Italian island of Elba, which contained him for all of 300 days, and the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where the recaptured Napoleon would spend the final five-and-a-half years of his life before dying in 1821. You can view the article here.

A map of Saint Helena, including the location of the proposed airport. Source: Cvdr, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Helena_Airport_location.svg. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Two centuries after Napoleon, Saint Helena remains one of the most isolated places on Earth. The island lies 1 870 km (1 160 mi) from the coast of Africa and 1 300 km (810 mi) south of the nearest island, Ascension (both are part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ). With a population of just over 4 200, the isolation of the 122 km² (47 sq mi) island is compounded by the lack of an airport. Currently, all civilian travel to the island is via the RMS Saint Helena, which also delivers all of the supplies required by the locals; the ship completes a circuit between Ascension, Saint Helena, and Cape Town 18 times per year. After some delay, a long-promised airport is in the works to be completed by 2015. Currently, the islands receives about 900 visitors per year; this is expended to jump exponentially once the airport is completed. One can expect a cottage industry to arise surrounding the various sites associated with Napoleon. For more on this fascinating island, start here at the South Atlantic and Subantarctic Islands page. and then follow the many links.

Below, a BBC crew interviews some schoolchildren in Saint Helena about their isolation and whether they'd like to stay on the island through adulthood.

And, of course, the obligatory slideshow:

British Home Children

2012-02-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

Note: There is a very insightful presentation (38:26) at the UK National Archives on the subjectof British child migration that is of much relevance to this article and can belistened to in accompaniment (you can also read the presentationtranscript here).

There’s a fair chance that if you live in Australia orCanada, you may have a ‘home child’ somewhere in your ancestry. Between 1869 and the 1960s, atleast 150 000 children between the ages of three and fourteen were sent abroadto other locations in the British Empire/Commonwealth (primarily Canada andAustralia, but also in significant numbers to New Zealand and SouthAfrica. Ostensibly a scheme to relocateorphans and impoverished children to places where they could find betteropportunities, the results were far from positive for many of the children thescheme was designed to benefit.

While many children sent abroad did indeed find goodfamilies to live with, far too many did not, as many children were placed ininstitutional farms or with families merely looking forcheap sources of labour. Childrensent abroad often found themselves quarantined, then given nametags and put ontrains en route to their new ‘home’. Many Home Children had brothers and sisters that were sent abroad withthem, only to lose touch with them completely upon arrival since littleattention was paid to familial relations when it came to placing children inhomes or farms. Otherswere falsely told that they were orphans when instead they had actuallybeen abandoned or separated (and in some cases, simply removed from squalidfamily homes).

Upon arriving at the farms or homes, male children weretypically placed into an apprenticeship (essentiallyan indentured labour contract bonding the child until adulthood), where theidea was that they would pick up some sort of trade they could then employthemselves with upon reaching adulthood. Female children were placed into service as domestics, and youngerchildren were expected to be adopted outright. Were most of these children properlysupervised, this could have been a positive experience (and for many thousandswho did wind up in good situations, it indeed was a welcome change from thepoverty of their homes; otherssaw both the good and the bad of it all). Instead, lackingregular inspections by government authorities, many suffered through a widerange of physical, mental, neglectful, and sexual abuses and never received thewages they were entitled to for their work nor the educations they had beenpromised. Many families often used themas ‘sparechildren’: a way to ensure their own children could receive high-endeducations at good schools without losing out on labour. There was also the shameand stigma of being an unwanted child.

The term ‘Home Children’ derives from the institutionalchildren’s homes and workhouses that sent many of the children abroad. While homeless and destitute children hadbeen sent to settler colonies abroad since at least1618, mainly to alleviate labour shortages, 1869 was the pivotal year forchild migration within the British Empire/Commonwealth. This was the year that philanthropists suchas Annie MacPherson,Maria Rye, and Thomas Barnardo inauguratedcharitable schemes that would ultimately send thousands of British and Irishchildren overseas permanently in cooperation with a British government eager torelieve itself of thestresses of overpopulation brought on by continual industrial expansion andurban migration following the Industrial Revolution.

MacPherson, a Scotswoman who had converted to evangelicalQuakerism, had been greatly affected by the poverty she had witnessed aftermoving to London; in particular, the horrific conditions experiencedby many in the East End in the wake of the 1866 cholera epidemic. Destitute children of the era were typicallyforced into labour conditions equivalent for many to child slavery. Those who resorted to pickpocketing forsustenance were often placed in adult prisons. In 1869, MacPherson opened her first children’s home, the Homeof Industry in Spitalfields. She also arranged for 50 families to be sentto Canada to find better opportunities for themselves. Within a short amount of time, this led toMacPherson establishing a network of group homes in Ontario and Quebec duringthe following year; one that would grow over the next few decades until WorldWar I. TheMacPherson organisation would merge with that of the Liverpool Sheltering Homein 1920.

8 100children came through this MacPherson home inStratford, Ontario between 1883 and 1919 before being ultimately beingplaced on farms or in private homes. Some would go on to find good homes; most were obtained as domesticlabour. Note the commemorative plaque infront.

Maria Rye, based out of Liverpool, worked primarily withfemale children, having already established herself as an assistant to educatedadult females looking to move abroad (aconservative woman born of privilege, Rye felt it important that emigrant menbe able to marry women of their own social standing). Once turning her attention to from women to girlsin 1869, Rye’s agency would be responsible for over 3 600 children being sentabroad to here reception centre at Niagara-on-the-Lake,Ontario, after which they would be moved into the employs of various familiesas domestics (Rye also sent boys to farms; for each child, shewould collect £10 from local authorities. When one considers she sent at least 10 000 children to Canada, and that£10 then is the equivalent of £450 today, that’s an intake equivalent to £4.5million (US$7.078 million) in modern-day funds).

Otherphilanthropists of the day also began paying for children to be housed,most notably Thomas Barnardo, an Irish Protestant doctor working in London andthe man who would ultimately send the most children abroad of anyone. Barnardo not only practised medicine butevangelised to London’s working class, leading him to become all too aware ofthe city’s poverty. In 1870, Barnardoopened his firstchildren’s home in Stepney; by his death, there would be 115 such homesacross the UK. The ability to operateand maintain these homes was dwarfed by the number of children sent off to thehomes by parents and relatives who could not afford to pay, or did not wish topay, for their care. Itwas in the 1880s that Barnardo began arranging for removal of children toplaces such as Canada, where the kids could be hired out as apprentices,farmhands, and domestics if there were no families willing to adopt them. By the turn of the century, nearlyevery second child immigrant to Canada came via the Barnardo’sorganisation.

Left: Thomas JohnBarnardo. Right: A turn-of-the-century child ploughing at a Barnardo’sIndustrial Farm in Manitoba.

Barnardo’s homes and farms paid for themselves via the various money-making schemesemployed within them to keep the children occupied. His care homes and farms were accused of notmaintaining proper sanitary conditions, and Barnardo himself was accused of not maintaining proper controlover the children and the people running his myriad institutions (keep inmind, there were thousands of children in dozens of homes within the Barnardo’s system at anygiven time). The last Barnardo’sorphanage closed in 1989, and the organisation has admittedculpability in the child migration scheme. Today, its widespread operations are geared toward assisting local children’sservices, serving over 100 000 children across the UK.

Though the intentions of MacPherson, Barnardo, and most of thephilanthropists were found to be honest, the manner in which their charitableschemes were actually carried out left much to be desired; asearly as 1875, there were formal investigations into the conditions childmigrants lived in. For Barnardo, one of thecriticisms levied against him included kidnapping children from parents withouttheir consent – which he openly admitted, believing that he was rescuingchildren from parents leading ‘infamousand immoral lives’. Maria Rye, whowas not motivated out of religious belief but rather out of class standing, wasderided as being detached, inattentive and brusque with her charges (witnessthis cartoon by the famous illustrator of Dickens, George Cruikshank, ofRye and her accomplices shovelling dozens of gutter children into the back of awagon to be hauled away).

In Australia, the child migrations of this sort acceleratedafter World War II, beginningin 1947 and continuing into the late 1960s (although there were people suchas Kingsley Fairbridge who were sending childrento Australian institutions as early as 1912). Here, the goal was not just to remove children from the United Kingdom,but also to supplythe recipient country with sufficient ‘white stock’. Home Children in Australia may be included alongsideinstitutionalised Aboriginal children (the Stolen Generations)and other non-indigenous children in institutional care within the larger thebroader term ‘ForgottenAustralians’ – the half-million children who suffered through variouslevels of physical and emotional abuse after being placed in orphanages andfoster homes administered by various state, charitable, and religious groups).

Unaccompanied migration of minor children wasbanned in Canada beginning in 1925, largely due to the tales of abusesurrounding Home Children (it’snot a coincidence that it was after this that children began being shipped toAustralia). The Canadian governmentdesignated 2010 the ‘Yearof the British Home Child’ but has stated that it willnot issue an apology for its role in the scheme similar to those issuedby the Australian government in 2009 and the United Kingdom in 2010, citing‘limited public appetite for official government apologies for tragic events ofthe past’. The province of Ontario hasdeclared every 28 September since 2010 to be BritishHome Child Day. It is believed that atleast 100 000 of the children involved in the programme ended up in Canada, andatleast ten percent of the Canadian population are descended from Home Children(including the former leader of the Canadian opposition, Gilles Duceppe). For all of the countries involved, the sagaof the Home Children is just one of the many institutional abuses committedagainst children during the 19^th and 20^th centuries thatthey are only in recent years coming to terms with.

Further Reading

Belton, B.J. (2010). 8,100 Home Children stayed in Stratford. Stratford Beacon Herald, 29June 2010. Available at http://spon.ca/8100-home-children-stayed-in-stratford/2010/06/29/. Accessed 8 February 2012.

BritishHomeChildren.org (2012). Familiesof British Home Children / British Child Migrants. Available at http://www.britishhomechildren.org/. Accessed 14 February 2012.

CBC News (2010). British PM apologizes to 'home children'. 24 February 2010. Available at http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2010/02/24/britain-home-children-apology.html. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (2010). News Release – Government of Canadadesignates 2010 as the Year of the British Home Child. 26 January 2010. Available at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2010/2010-01-26a.asp. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (2010). British Home Children: HistoricalOverview. 18 August 2010. Available at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2010/2010-01-26a.asp. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Doherty, V. (2009). The Lost Children. SS Asturias. Available at www.ssasturias.net/the_lost_children.html. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Kershaw, R. (2009). Child emigration to Canada. The National Archives, 9 January 2009.Available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/emigration-to-canada.htm. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Kohli, M.P. (2010). Emigration as a Solution. YoungImmigrants to Canada, 13 January 2010. Available at http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/children/conditions.html. Accessed 14 February 2012.

McKay (2006). Thomas John Barnardo 1845 - 1905Philanthropist. h2g2, 13 July 2006. Available at http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/plain/A12511946. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Parr, J. (2002). Maria Susan Rye. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Available at http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=7046. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Snow, P. (2012). The British Home Children: The British ChildEmigration Scheme to Canada (1870-1957). Available at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~britishhomechildren/. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Stewart, P.(n.d.). TheHome Children. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Available at http://www.pier21.ca/wp-content/uploads/files/First_75_Years/research_home_children.pdf. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Walker, P. (2009). Brown to apologise to care home children sent to Australia and Canada. TheGuardian, 16 November 2009. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/15/apology-child-migrants-gordon-brown. Accessed 14 February 2012.

Old Country-Code Top-Level Internet Domains Never Die, They Just Fade Away (Sometimes)

2012-02-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

In the big, wide world of the Internet, there are essentially two types of top-level Internet domains (TLDs) in everyday usage (discounting the infrastructural .arpa). There are generic domains with no specific geographic attachment (e.g., .com, .net, .org, .info, .mobi), and there are country-code domains assigned to individual countries and territorial entities based for the most part on ISO 3166-1 two-letter country codes (e.g., .ca for Canada, .de for Germany, .jp for Japan, .nl for the Netherlands, and so on; also falling under the country-code domains there are the newly-introduced internationalised domains inaugurated in May 2010 that do not use Latin characters in order to allow people and organisations to register website domains in their native writing systems as can be seen near the bottom of this page).

As a geography site, it is the country code TLDs we areinterested in for this article; namely, what happens to all of the domains and websitesusing a country-code TLD when their country of registration changes its name orceases to exist entirely. County-codeTLDs were first allocated back in the mid-to-late-1980s, and while there havebeen far more places added to the roster of countries and territories sincethen (the dissolution of the Soviet Union alone resulted in 15 newlyindependent countries and thus15 new ISO 3166-1 codes and 15 country-code TLDs), there are eight (or nine)TLDs formerly in use which have been deleted entirely or are in the process of being phasedout (not to be confused with TLDs which were reserved at one time but neverput into use, such as Burma’s stillborn .bu, abandoned in favour of .mm denoting Myanmar).

.an (NetherlandsAntilles): 16 months after thedissolution of the Netherlands Antilles, approximately 800 domains stillexist with the .an TLD, which has existed since September 1993. The University ofthe Netherlands Antilles in Curacao, which is in charge of operating theTLD, will be deleting the TLD entirely on31 October 2013 in favour of the new .cw domain assigned toCuracao a full year before the deadline given by ICANN,the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names andNumbers. Those currently using .an getfirst choice in reserving equivalent domains within .cw. Meanwhile, Sint Maarten has received the TLD .sx, and the threeislands absorbed into the Netherlands proper (Bonaire, Sint Eustasius, andSaba) have been given .bq,which remains to be activated.

.cs (first Czechoslovakia, thenSerbia and Montenegro): A rare case of a TLD assigned twice, .cs wasoriginally assigned to Czechoslovakia in 1990, which promptly broke up in1993. Evidently users were slow tomigrate to .cz and .sk as one year later, there were still 2 300 hosts recordedwithin .cs; the TLD was deleted in January 1995. .cs would make its (nominal) return in 2003when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia reconstituted itself as Serbia andMontenegro. The ISO had chosen ‘CS’as the country’s two-letter code, taking the ‘C’ from Crna Gora (the native name for Montenegro) and ‘S’ from Srbija (Serbia). .cs was never activated, however, as the pre-existing.yu for Yugoslavia was instead kept in use until the 2006 dissolution of Serbiaand Montenegro.

.dd (East Germany): Thisis the TLD that barely counts on this list, since it was never technicallyregistered by the InternetAssigned Number Authority. It was,however, used internally bythe universities of Jena and Dresden on their own servers. When East Germany merged with the west in October1990, the ISO codes for East Germany were promptly retired before the domainwas able to be properly activated.

.oz (Australia): Likethe United Kingdom’s use of .uk rather than .gb, .oz bucked ISOconvention. .oz dates back to the wildand woolly origins of the Internet before the standard of using ISO codes forTLD was established. Back in the days whenuniversity-based networks were still dialing into the US-based ARPANET (in this case, the late1970s), the Universityof Sydney operated the Australian Computer Science network, or ACSnet, whichused .oz as its domain. Once a permanentemail connection was made to ARPANET from ACSnet in the early 1980s, .au wasassigned in 1984, and all .oz properties were subsumed into .oz.au,which still exists today.

.su (Soviet Union): TheTLD that just won’t die, .su continues to host tens of thousands of domainnames more than two decades after the country it belonged to ceased to exist(keep in mind that the Soviet Union broke up before the World Wide Web even officiallyexisted). In fact, last month .su hosted over 100 000 different registered domainnames for the first time. .su is listed as ‘being phased out’on the IANA website, but don’t expect this to occur anytime soon; the Russian Institutefor Public Networks (to which .su is assigned) is still activelysoliciting domain registrations. That’s probably not good news for your computer, as many .su sites are havens for malware. There are plenty of legitimate sites within.su as well, rangingfrom everyday businesses to post-communist nostalgia sites (not to mention Nashi, the pro-Putin nationalist youthmovement).

.tp (East Timor): .tp,standing for Portuguese Timor, was assigned inabsentia to the former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia after lobbyingfrom a group in Ireland, who registered the then-jailed resistance leader XananaGusmão with IANA as the domain’s administrator using the address and telephone numberof the military commander’s barracks where Gusmão last slept before hisimprisonment. When East Timor gainedindependence in 2002 as Timor-Leste, the TP country code became outdated,having been replaced by TL. A .tl TLDwas established in 2005 with all .tp domain names immediately receiving theirequivalent at .tl. No new .tp registrationhave been permitted since, but many of the old .tp site are still around; thefirst site opened under .tp, Free East Timor,remains frozen in 1997.

.um (United States MinorOutlying Islands): A TLD assigned in1997 for use in conjunction with the varioussmall islands with no permanent residents owned by the United States in thecentral Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, .um saw little use before being removedfrom the ICANN list of TLDs in January 2007 and deleted entirely in April 2008(although the country coderemains reserved). The lack ofdomain registration at .um likely had to do with it origins as being assignedto the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institutesimply because it was already in charge of the United States’ .us TLD at thetime; .umwas never a priority, so .um was never really promoted. Visitorsto www.nic.um received this message: a brief description of the MinorOutlying Islands, an email link for registration questions, and links to the World Factbook entries of the individualislands – the apparent extent of .um domain marketing.

.yu (Yugoslavia): As mentionedabove, .yu persisted well after the end of Yugoslavia. The original .yu TLD was assigned in 1989 tothe University of Maribor and the Jožef Stefan Institute, both located inSlovenia. When the Alpine republic leftYugoslavia along with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia, it tookthe .yu registries with it; the YU country code, however, remained with therump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). A two-year battle over the TLD ended in 1994 when .yu was awarded to theUniversity of Belgrade. .yu began beingphased out in March 2008 after the break-up of Serbia and Montenegro, and .yuusers had sixmonths to establish priority registration within Serbia’s new .rs TLD (mostusers did). .yu wasdeleted entirely on 30 March 2010, along with 4 000 sites that had failedto take their business over to .rs.

.zr (Zaire): When Zairereverted to its former name of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997, itreceived the ISO country code CD, rendering its previous code of ZRobsolete. .cd wasquickly introduced that same year, and .zr was gradually emptied ofcontent. By 11 March 2001, .zr was completelyempty, and theTLD was deleted on 20 June.

Further Reading

Abuse.su (2012). CybercriminalsMoving Over To TLD .su. 29 January 2012. Available at http://www.abuse.ch/?p=3581. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Clarke, R. (2004). Origins and Nature of theInternet in Australia. 29January 2004. Available at http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzI04.html. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Cohen, D. (2007). Erringover .um. The Guardian, 6 February 2007. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2007/feb/06/erringoverum. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Haunting Europe (2011). A boy named .su. 9 January2011. Available at http://hauntingeurope.com/2011/01/a-boy-named-su/. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (2001). IANA Report on Deletion of the .zr Top-LevelDomain. 20 June 2001. Available at http://www.iana.org/reports/2001/zr-report-20jun01.html. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (2012). Root Zone Database. Available at http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Johnson, B. (2009). It'sadieu, .yu as web watchdog Balkanises domain name. TheGuardian, 29 September 2009. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/29/yugoslavia-yu-domain-name-icann. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Kilner, J. (2007). USSRstill alive on Internet and won't go quietly. Reuters, 19 September2007. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/09/19/us-russia-internet-idUSL1986480720070919?rpc=401&. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Law, G. (2011). ISO3166-1 Change History. Statoids, 4 August 2011. Available at http://www.statoids.com/w3166his.html. Accessed 15 February 2012.

Register of National Internet Domain Names of Serbia (2010). YU domain becomes history. 30 March 2010. Available at http://www.rnids.rs/en/news/yu-domain-becomes-history/id/1430. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Scheck, R. (2008). Top-Level-Domain .DD. 4 November2008. Available at http://internet.robert-scheck.de/tld-dd/. Accessed 16 February 2012.

Who Claims Antarctica?

2012-02-13T02:09:00.000-08:00

Antarctica has long been famous for being the only continent in which no government holds power. While not truly uninhabited thanksto the thousands of personnel present in research stations, the world community generally looks at Antarctica as terra nullius – belonging to no one. That is not to say, however, that no one claims land on the continent, for in fact there are seven countries that claim what amounts to about three-quarters of the frozen continent as part of their own national territory. Since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, these claims have been frozen in the sense that these countries are not allowed to assert, defend or deny any claims made to Antarctic territory (defined as all land below 60°S latitude) by any country, nor is any non-scientific military activity permitted in Antarctica. As long as the treaty remains in place, so will Antarctica’s neutral status. Nevertheless, the claims, however frozen by the treaty, are still in play (the United States and Russia also retain the right to make territorial claims). Here, then, are the seven claimants to Antarctic territory and their claims. As you can see on the map below, three of these claims overlap.

British Antarctic Territory: The United Kingdom placed a claim on thesector of Antarctica between 20°W and 80°W latitude in 1908, as well as SouthGeorgia, the South Sandwich Islands, the South Orkney islands, and SouthShetland Island. Essentially, it was anextension of their holdings in the Falkland Islands, to the point where theseclaims were administered as the FalklandIslands Dependencies. The claim wascertified to extend southward all the way to the pole in 1917. Strategically, this is a very importantwedge, as it contains the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part ofthe Antarctic mainland and the part of the continent that hosts the most humanactivity. In 1962, after theimplementation of the Antarctic Treaty, the British government removed the Antarcticterritory from the Falklands’ purvey (which was reduced to South Georgia and theSouth Sandwich Islands since that was all of the territory left north of 60°S) and created the British AntarcticTerritory, administered by the Foreign& Commonwealth Office. The BAT governmentfinances its operations almost entirely through mintingcoins and printingstamps; its issues some of the most sought-after modern-day issues bycollectors in recent years (as these prices attest). The UK maintains three research stations plusPortLockroy, a historic whaling and research station that now operates as a museum, postoffice, and tourist stop.

ChileanAntarctic Territory: The westernhalf of the British claim overlaps with the Chilean claim, which extendsfrom 53°W to 90°W. The claim dates backto 1940, and the territory’s current status is that of a commune inside of the Antártica Chilena Province, thesouthernmost province of Chile. Villa Las Estrellas, the largest civilian settlementon the continent, is located here along with ten other Chilean bases. BernardoO’Higgins Station at the top end of the peninsula serves as the capital.

A plaque in PuntaArenas, Chile showing the Chilean claim. Source: M. St-Amant, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:182_-_Punta_Arenas_-_Revendications_territoriales_chiliennes_-_Janvier_2010.JPG. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence.

Argentine Antarctica:Argentina’s claim overlaps both those of Chile and the UK, meaning allthree countries claim the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands. Argentina’s claim is the most recent, datingback to 1942. It claims the territory asa department (equivalent to a US county) n the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, andSouth Atlantic Islands with a censuspopulation of 230. The othercivilian settlement in Antarctica, Esperanza, is locatedhere, one of 13 bases Argentina has within its Antarctic claim.

QueenMaud Land: Moving east of the three overlapping claims centered on theAntarctic Peninsula (and directly bordering the British claim), we come toQueen Maud Land (Dronning MaudLand), claimed by Norway as a dependency since 1939 (the area of theclaim is about seven times as large as the actual country of Norway) and namefor the late queen consortof Norway (and granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom) thathad passed away the previous year. Theextends between 20°W and 45°E, straddling the Prime Meridian, but unlike theother claims on Antarctica does not explicitly reach north to 60°S or south tothe pole. Norway maintains one permanent(Troll) andone seasonal (Tor) base in Queen Maud Land The entire coastline of Queen Maud Land is a 20-30m(66-98 ft) ice cliff.

Australian Antarctic Territory: Tothe east of the Norwegian claim is Australia’s claim, Australian AntarcticTerritory. The claim is broken apart byFrance’s claim, leaving a larger western sector (45°E to 136°E) and a smallereastern sector (142°E to 160°E). Intotal, the 5 896 500 km² (2 276 651 sq mi) claimconstitutes approximately 42% of the entire area of Antarctica; Australiamaintains just three bases for the entire area. Originally, the westernmost portion, EnderbyLand, was a British claim made in 1930. Enderby Land was transferred to Australian control three years later(part of the gradual relinquishing of British control over the foreign affairsof other British Empire countries), at which Australia accepted responsibilityover all of the land between 45°E and 160°Eother than France’s Adélie Land in the name of the Commonwealth.

AdélieLand: The aforementioned Adélie Land occupies the narrow wedge of landbetween 136°E and 142°E. Discovered bythe French explorer Dumont d'Urville in 1840 (who named it for hiswife), this land formally was claimed by France in 1924, nine years beforeAustralia made its claim on the surrounding lands. Today, France claims it as one of the fivedistrict of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands,which otherwise consist of various islands dispersed around the Indian Ocean;the capital is thus Port-aux-Français on Grande Terre, Kerguelen. The lone French base (and base of any kindfor that matter) is fittingly namedfor Dumont d’Urville.

RossDependency: New Zealand’s Ross Dependency is the easternmost mainlandclaim on Antarctica, extending from 160°E to 150°W, the sector immediatelysurrounding the RossSea (and thus the Ross Ice Shelf, Ross Island,RooseveltIsland, and Mount Erebus,the world’ssouthernmost active volcano which has been in a state of eruption since1972). Two heavily-used researchstations, New Zealand’s Scott Base and the United States’ McMurdoStation, lie adjacent to each other on Ross Island, and the famous ice-freeMcMurdo Dry Valleyslie here as well. Claimed for theBritish by the explorer James Ross (for whom the dependency is named) in 1841, theclaim was transferred to New Zealand in 1923. As with the United Kingdom, New Zealand produces stampsexclusively for the dependency valued by philatelists (although RossDependency mail is processed back in New Zealand at Christchurch).

PeterI Island: While the remaining mainland between 90°W and 150°W isunclaimed (it is called Marie Byrd Land after the wife of US explorer RichardByrd), there is a small offshore claim from Norway in the form of Peter I Island,450 km (280 mi) north of Australia in the Bellingshausen Sea and named in1820 for Peter the Great of Russia. Almost entirely glaciated, 40-m (130-ft) ice cliffs surround nearly theisland. Norway claimed the island in 1931in an effort to gain another potential whaling station location, but no shipswould return to Peter I until 1948, and whaling never took place here to anylarge extent. Even today, it is believedthat less than 600 people have ever stepped foot here.

View LargerMap

Note: the UK, France, Norway,Australia, and New Zealand all recognise each other’s claims, but Chile andArgentina do not recognise each other’s claims, nor the UK’s.

Further Reading

Australian Government (2000). Australian Antarctic Territory AcceptanceAct 1933. ComLaw. Available at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2004C00416. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Conference on Antarctica (1959). TheAntarctic Treaty. Washington, 15October 1959. Available at http://www.ats.aq/documents/ats/treaty_original.pdf. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Filatelia Argentina (2000). La Actividad Argentina en la Antártida. Available at http://www.cpel.uba.ar/filargenta/correo/anta0047.htm. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2011). BritishAntarctic Territory. Available at http://britishantarcticterritory.fco.gov.uk/en/. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty (2011). The Antarctic Treaty. Available at http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (2011). Antarctic Treaty. Available at http://www.scar.org/treaty/. Accessed 13 February 2012.

Waterbound Exclaves

2012-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

At the time of this post, there are at least 271 placesin the world that are both enclaves and exclaves – small pieces of acountry not only separated from the rest of the country they belong to butsurrounded entirely by another country. For 258 of these enclaves/exclaves,it’s exactly what you’d expect – one small piece of land surrounded entirely byanother country, justlike this example here or thisexample here. But what happens whenone country’s land is surrounded by another country’s water? There are at least 13known instances where islands belonging to one country are found in rivers orlakes belonging to another, and as soon as one leaves the shore, they’vecrossed an international boundary. Evenstranger is that 11 of these 13 instances involve the same country.

Apipé and Entre Ríos (Argentine, surrounded by Paraguayan waters)

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The Paraná River is the second-longest river in SouthAmerica, trailing only the Amazon. Ofits 4 880 km (3 030 mi) length, about 732km (455 mi) of the Paraná forms the international boundary betweenArgentina and Paraguay. Numerous fluvialislands dot the channel of the Paraná along this section of the border (despitebeing hundreds of kilometres inland, the terrain is so flat here that the riveronly lies 60-65 m, or 196-213 ft, above sea level). In this middle of thischannel west of the Yaciretá Dam arethe 25-km (40-mi) long Isla Apipé, the 19-km (32-mi) long Isla Entre Ríos, anda handful of subsidiary islets which all belong to Argentina’s province ofCorrientes.

The international border runs through the middle of the Paraná to the south, leaving thischunk of Corrientes surrounded by Paraguay (Misiones Department, to beprecise). Thisarrangement dates all the way back to 1852 and a treaty between the twocountries that ended seven years of contentious relations following a failedParaguayan attempt to foment an unsuccessful rebellion against the Argentinegovernment in Corrientes (the agreement would be amended again in 1876 in thewake of Paraguay’s defeat in the War of theTriple Alliance). The two largestislands in the Paraná, Apipé and Yaciretá, had each previously been settled byArgentina and Paraguay, respectively, and so were granted to their respectivesettlers; the remainder of the islands in the river were split according to countrythey lay closest to. The boundary, however,was set along the deepest part of the main channel (the thalweg) which almostinvariably leaned toward the south, thus putting much of the river inParaguayan hands. This produced asituation where islands could be given to Argentina since they were closer tothe shore, but were physically surrounded by Paraguay since they remain northof the deepest part of the river channel. In the case of the aforementioned Apipé and Entre Ríos, this is exactlywhat happened. This is especially ofimportance for the 2 000 or so people who live on Apipé, which is accessed onlyby boat. Not only do residents have to show theirpassports to Paraguayan officials just to get to work every day on the mainlandand vice versa, but everyfishing trip or beach swim is a potential international incident (keep inmind that the waters are actively patrolled by the Paraguayan navy).

Isla MartínGarcía (Argentine, surrounded by Uruguayan waters)

The lush green area with thevillage and airport is Argentina’s IslaMartín García; the marshy wetland to its north is Uruguay’s Isla TimoteoDominguez.

After leaving the border with Paraguay west of Isla Entre Ríos,the Paraná travels hundreds of kilometres south through Argentina beforemeeting its final destination, the Ríode la Plata estuary split between Argentina and Uruguay. Again, here the border runs down the thalwegof the channel, and in this case that actually winds up giving much of theestuary to Argentina. One Argentinepossession, however, exists on the Uruguayan side of the border.

Named for a ship steward buried on the island in 1516, Martín García existed in dispute between thevarious powers and occupiers of the region for hundreds of years due to itsadvantageous position at the head of the estuary. Near the end of Spanish rule in 1765, a penal colony was founded on the island as its isolation combined with the Ríode la Plata’s turbulent waters made escape very difficult. Even after Spain’s removal from SouthAmerica, the island would continue to serve this function until 1886. Argentina and Uruguay continued to fight overthe island, taking the places of Spain and Portugal in the dispute. Theeasterners captured the island in 1845 led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, but largely withdrew uponthe defeat of the Argentine governor Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1852, after which theisland was not nearly as important. Martín García was transferred to theArgentine navy in 1886, after which a community of 4 000 eventually emerged onthe island. It would not be until1973 that a formal agreement was finally reached between Argentina andUruguay. In the agreement, Martín García was expressly deemed to be anArgentine exclave for use as a nature reserve. With some amount of foresight, the agreement also stipulated that should the island become attached toanother island through natural fluvial processes (which it eventually did),Argentina’s territory was to be limited to the size of the island in its 1973form. The navy gave up the island toBuenos Aries province in the 1980s, and today Martín García is a tourist resortfor those looking to explore the old town and the nature reserve.

Filomena Islands (Uruguayan,surrounded by Argentine waters)

FilomenaChica, Filomena Grande, Mesones, Bassi, and Boca Chica all belong to Uruguaybut sit on the Argentine side of the border.

Now for a reversal: five uninhabited Uruguayan islandssurrounded by Argentina. The FilomenaIslands lie in the Uruguay River, the other major tributary of the Río de laPlata which also happens to form nearly the entire border between the twocountries. The 1961 Uruguay River Treatyproduced the same middle-of-the-channel agreement as the others mentioned here,trapping these five islands in Argentine waters. These islands are quite prone to movement andattachment/reattachment based on the ever-changing course of the river’s sidechannels. Other than that, there’sreally not much of note to say about these islands.

Chizumulu and Likoma (Malawian, surrounded byMozambican waters)

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The only entry on this list that doesn’t involve Argentinais the case of Chizumuluand Likoma, two islands in Lake Malawi/Nyasa‘trapped’ behind theMozambique border. The two islandshave a fair number of residents (9 000 on Likoma; 4 000 on Chizumulu). While the lake had been known to Europeansfor some time, these two islands in particular were first reached by Europeansin 1880 in the form of Scottish missionaries from the Anglican Universities' Mission toCentral Africa, beating the Portuguese, who were busy expanding theircolonial holdings in Mozambique, to the punch. Despite the proximity to what would shortly become a Portugueseshoreline with the international boundary between Malawi and Mozambique runningdown the middle of the lake, the islands remained in British hands as part ofwhat would become Nyasaland,the future country of Malawi.

St. Peter’s Church onLikoma is one of the largest cathedrals in Africa. Source: Moongateclimber, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_peters_church_likoma_island_malawi.jpg. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Unlike the other islands on this list where jurisdictionends at the shoreline, Malawi is permitted a small perimeter of control around theislands so that local residents can carry out traditional activities such asfishing. The islands are gaining a bitof renown in recent time asan ecotourism destination, aided by the lure of both the islands’ isolation(traditionalactivities abound, and crime and transiency are minimal) and their manybeaches.

Further Reading

Department of State, United States of America (1979). InternationalBoundary Study No. 166 – January 30, 1979: Argentina – Paraguay Boundary. Washington: Department of State. Available at http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/limitsinseas/ibs166.pdf. Accessed 12 February 2012.

Howder, T. (2009). Likomaand Chizumulu. Twelve Mile Circle, 6 April 2009. Available at http://www.howderfamily.com/blog/likoma-and-chizumulu/. Accessed 12 February 2012.

Krogh, J.S. (2012). Exclaves and Enclaves. Jan S. Krogh’s Geosite, 5 February 2012. Available at http://geosite.jankrogh.com/exclaves.htm. Accessed 12 February 2012.

Murphy, A., et al.(2010). Northern Malawi. In Zambiaand Malawi, 217-239. Melbourne:Lonely Planet.

Poles of Inaccessibility: The Most Obscure Places on Earth?

2012-02-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

Everyone is familiar with the concept of geographic poles: the two points on the planet where the axis of rotation meets the surface (i.e., the north and south poles). Many are also familiar with the magnetic poles – the points on the planet’s surface where a planet’s magnetic field lines are vertical and as such are the locations compasses point toward. These locations shift constantly due to changes in the magnetic field. The geographic poles in particular hold a special mystique: their extreme locations and harsh climates kept explorers at bay for centuries until they were finally reached in the early 20^th century.

While the geographic poles might be the place furthestremoved from the Equator, they are not necessarily the locations mostchallenging to reach. In both the ArcticOcean and on the Antarctic continent, there are locations further removed fromthe nearest access point known as the poles ofinaccessibility: the place in the Arctic farthest removed from land or,conversely, the place in Antarctica farthest removed from the ocean. Reaching these two locations may be thepinnacle of extreme travel on Earth.

The North Pole may be the northernmost point on Earth, butit lies ‘only’ 700 km (430 mi) from the coast of northern Greenland, with mostof the island-free open area (it would be imprudent to refer to it as ‘openwater’ this far north) in the Arctic Ocean lying in the direction of the Beaufortand East Siberian seas. The mostisolated point from land in the Arctic Ocean lies 611 km (411 mi) away at 84°03′N 174°51′W, not quitedue north from Wainwright,Alaska. The closest land masses,Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Russia’s Franz Josef Land, each 1,094 km(680 mi) away. The location is soremote and so far removed from land that it has never truly been reached by foot(the Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins flew over it by airplane in 1928 on aflight from Barrow, Alaska to Svalbard, and the English explorer Wally Herbert narrowly missedthe precise location of the pole travelling by dogsled as part of the 1968-69British Trans-Arctic Expedition. Morerecently, another British explorer, JimMcNeill, has madevarious attempts to reach the pole by foot over the past decade. McNeill’s efforts thus far have been thwartedby a number of different events, including a bout of necrotising fasciitis lessthan 24 hours before his 2003 attempt, encounteringdisintegrating sea ice a short distance into his 2006 expedition thatattempted to reach the geographic, magnetic, geomagnetic, and inaccessibility polesin the same journey, and unstable sea conditions in 2010. With McNeill and his team seemingly the onlyones making active attempts on the northern pole of inaccessibility, it remainsto be seen just how long goal this may actually take for someone to reach.

Defining the southern, or Antarctic, pole of inaccessibilitydepends upon your definition of the bounds of Antarctica. Should one include just the Antarctic landmass proper or the permanently attached ice sheets as well? Byconvention, the southern pole of inaccessibility is placed at the abandonedSoviet research station of the same name, located 878 km (546 mi)from the South Pole at 82°06′S 54°58′E andconsidered to have the coldest year-round average temperature on Earth at -58.2°C(-72°F). Other locations for are alsoposited by different sources. The Universityof Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute places the poleat 85°50′S 65°47′E, and the British Antarctic Survey gives twolocations: a land surface proper location of 82°53′14″S 55°4′30″E andan ice sheet-inclusive location of 83°50′37″S 65°43′30″E. The Soviet station was established in alocation determined to be the pole in December 1958; all edifices and supplieswere hauled overland by tractor. Operatingfor only 12 days (14-26 December 1958), it was quickly abandoned due to thebelief that it was an unsuitable location for permanent occupation. Left behind were a radio transmitter and a four-personhut topped with a statue of Lenin. A US expedition visited thestation in late 1964-early 1965, but otherwise the base remained untoucheduntil aBritish-Canadian expedition reached the site via kite-powered sleds on 19January 2007, finding the old hut buried in snow with only Lenin’s bustvisible above ground. As for the polelocations marked by the Survey, which in all likelihood are the most accurate,these locations were firstvisited by three members of the Spanish Transantarctic Expedition in one fellswoop, being reached on 11 and 14 December 2005, respectively, also usingkite power. Due to the constant changesin Antarctic ice sheet conditions, it is likely that further change in the pole’slocation will occur and thus the old Soviet station will continued to be usedas the de jure southern pole.

Lenin’s bust, pointedin the direction of Moscow, at the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility in January2007. Source: H. Cookson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Southern_Pol_of_Inaccessibility_Henry_Cookson_team_n2i.JPG. Licensedunder the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Beyond the Arctic and Antarctic, the concept is also extendedto other continents and oceans, most famously with the point of ocean on Earth asa whole farthest removed from land and, conversely, the point land on Earth farthestremoved from the ocean. Unsurprisingly,the oceanic pole of inaccessibility lies in the Pacific Ocean, but nowhere nearthe middle of the ocean itself, which is populated by the various islands ofOceania. Instead, the oceanic pole liesat 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W, 2 688kilometres (1 670 mi) southeast of the Pitcairn Islands and southwest ofEaster Island (or, aboutsixty percent of the way between New Zealand and mainland Chile). The pole has been nicknamed Point Nemo, after thecaptain of Jules Verne’s Twenty ThousandLeagues Under the Sea.

Point Nemo, in the southeasternPacific just north of the Southern Ocean.

This Easter egg in Google Maps greets those who are searching for Point Nemo.

As with the southern pole of inaccessibility, thecontinental pole of inaccessibility has multiple definitions. The pole has been long held to be located at 46°17′N 86°40′E, alocation in Xinjiang, China near the Kazakhstani border north of the regionalcapital of Ürümqi 2 645 km (1 644 mi) from the sea. A2007 study by Daniel Garcia-Castellanos and Umberto Lombardo challenged this, however, as the conventionalcalculation ignores the Gulf of Ob in northern Siberia which pierces approximately1 000 km (600 mi) into the Eurasian landmass. When the Gulf was taken into account, and because of the ambiguity ofthe deltaic islands and shoals of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta to the south onthe Indian Ocean coast, the study put forward two potential continental polesof inaccessibility (a.k.a. Eurasia Poles of Inaccessibility) located to thesouthwest and southeast of the traditional pole still north of Ürümqi but nowlocated approximately2 510 km (1 560 mi) from the nearest coasts. The westernmost of these poles, known asEPIA1, is closest to the Gulf of Ob, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea;the easternmost, EPIA2, swaps out the Arabian Sea for the East China Sea.

Variouspoles of inaccessibility as described in Garcia-Castellanos and Lombardo(2007). Source: Galanauta, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Distancia_a_la_costa.png. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

TheGarcia-Castellanos/Lombardo paper also calculated poles of inaccessibilityfor Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Great Britain, the IberianPeninsula, Madagascar, and Greenland. Unfortunately, it appears that no one hasendeavoured to denote the precise location of the Atlantic and Indian poles ofinaccessibility. From the map shown aboveadaptedfrom the Garcia-Castellanos/Lombardo paper, we can see that the Atlantic poleis located approximatelymidway between Bermuda and Cape Verde while the Indian pole is located alittle less than halfway between Kerguelen and Western Australia (note:these map links are approximate and are not meant to denote the preciselocation). Those wondering how theIndian pole of inaccessibility could be located so far to the southeast of thecentre of the ocean need only lookat the numerous island groups that dot the breadth of the water body.

Further Reading

Barrabes (2005). Alcanzadoel Polo Sur de la Inaccesibilidad. 13December 2005. Available at http://www.barrabes.com/revista/articulo_ant.asp?idArticulo=4549. Accessed 9 February 2012.

Becker, K. (2010). NorthPole 2010: Expedition To The Pole of Inaccessibility is Postponed. TheAdventure Blog, 10 February 2010. Available at http://theadventureblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/north-pole-2010-expedition-to-pole-of.html. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Daily Mail (2007). British three reach pole of inaccessibility. 20 January 2007. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-430167/British-reach-pole-inaccessibility.html. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Garcia-Castellanos, D. (2011). Polesof Inaccessibility. 25 March 2011. Availableat https://sites.google.com/site/polesofinaccessibility/home. Accessed 9 February 2012.

Garcia-Castellanos, D. and U. Lombardo (2007). Poles of Inaccessibility: A Calculation Algorithmfor the Remotest Places on Earth. Scottish Geographical Journal 123(3):227-233. Available at http://cuba.ija.csic.es/~danielgc/papers/Garcia-Castellanos,%20Lombardo,%202007,%20SGJ.pdf. Accessed 9 February 2012.

Kaun, E. (2010). IceWarriors of the Arctic. WideWorld, 4 January 2010. Available at http://www.wideworldmag.com/features/ice-warriors-of-the-arctic. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Lukatela, H. (2004). Point Nemo (or, One Thousand and FourHundred Miles from Anywhere). 26March 2004. Available at http://www.geocuriosa.com/pointnemo/index.html. Accessed 9 February 2012.

McNeill, J. (2006). Explorerset for historic Arctic adventure. BBC News, 20 February 2006. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4731672.stm. Accessed 8 February 2012.

WideWorld (2010). Pole quest postponed. 10 February2010. Available at http://www.wideworldmag.com/news/pole-quest-postponed. Accessed 8 February 2012.

Google Sightseeing: Fuji Speedway (Plus Some Abandoned Oval Motor Circuits of Europe)

2012-02-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

My latest article over at Google Sightseeing (which you can view here) takes a look at Japan’s Fuji Speedway, which was visited by the Google Street View team during a weekend of racing action. Street View not only captured imagery directly from the main speedway circuit but also of the two karting circuits in the parking lots and of the pit paddock, where dozens of Super GT cars are shown being prepared for a practice session.

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From a geographer’s perspective, Fuji Speedway is perhapsmore notable for the large footprint it makes on the surrounding landscape. The current track is over 4.5 km (2.8 mi) inlength, and the facility also takes up a considerable amount of acreage for itsvarious buildings and auxiliary facilities. Located in a mountainous area where available land is sparse and transportationinfrastructure is limited compared to much of the rest of the country, largeevents at the speedway can cause a deluge of spectators into the area that clogmajor roads in all directions for kilometres on end, asfans of Formula 1 racing found out when the series returned to the facility in2007 (the following year the speedway was forced to reduce ticket sales inorder to prevent such infrastructural issues, which in turn made the F1 raceunprofitable; the series has not returned since and is unlikely to do so in thefuture). Part of this huge footprintalso includes the abandoned oval section of the track. Fuji was originally constructed as a way tointroduce high-banked American-style oval racing to Japan, but the oval-style cornerbanked at 30 degrees on a downhill slope resulted in so many fatalities that ithad to be abandoned in 1974 in favour of a new configuration. The remnants can be seen on the above map atthe top right of the image.

Fuji Speedway is just one of the many circuits that haveattempted, and largely failed, to incorporate banked oval-track auto racing outsideof the Americas and Australia. Inparticular, Europe, where oval racing is basically unheard of outside of motorcycle speedway(which is run on dirt tracks more akin to horse racing circuits than othertypes of motor racing) has been the hardest nut to crack. The only three purpose-built oval circuitsconstructed within the past 60 years, Germany’s EuroSpeedway Lausitz and England’sRockinghamMotor Speedway and MalloryPark, have seen far more use of their infield road courses than of theirmain oval configurations in line with local preferences. Older, pre-World War II ovals have eitherlong been abandoned or reconfigured into road circuits.

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Part of the original concrete track at Brooklands parallels the A318 road.

Perhaps the most notable oval course in Europe to beabandoned outright was Brooklandsin Weybridge,Surrey. The world’s first purpose-builtmotor circuit, Brooklands was a 2.75-mile (4.43 km) kidney-shaped oval constructed ofconcrete in 1907; a facility intended for high-speed testing of Britishautomobiles (it was said to be so steeply banked that drivers could take thecorners without even manoeuvring the steering wheel). Brooklandscould hold up to 287 000 spectators, and was the track where the first car todrive 100 miles (160 km) in one hour was driven in 1913. Brooklands changed permanently in World War Iwhen the site was obtained by the War Office. Already possessing a functioning runway (a.k.a. the finishing straight),Brooklands becamea major centre for the burgeoning aviation industry as well, eventuallybecoming home to a major Vickers(and later BAC)factory. Racing on the track continueduntil World War II, but Brooklands became more known as an airport andaerospace location, leading to the facility’s bombing during the war, whichresulted in damages to the racetrack that was never repaired. After this, Brooklands was fully converted toan aerodrome, which remained in operation until 1987; among other things, Brooklandswas instrumental in development of the Concorde. Today, aided by its closeproximity to the M25 orbital, the west half of Brooklands is a large officepark and shopping centre. The middleairport section is home to the BrooklandsMuseum and to Mercedes-Benz World (a family-oriented drivingfacility), and the eastern portion is occupied by a combination of housing and industrialestates which have caused the removal of the original track in thoseareas. Fundraising geared towardrestoring the remaining portions of banked track is ongoing; aboutthree-quarters of the original track remains, though it is quite overgrown.

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Two shots of theabandoned oval portion of Monza. Sources:C.O. Poe, http://www.flickr.com/photos/publius_ovidius/4181663010/and Dino246, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monza_banking_2003.JPG. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) licence.

The legendary AutodromoNazionale Monza is home to one of the most storied auto races on theplanet, the Italian Grand Prix. The initial circuit was a road course and anoval sharing a common strait – the forebear of today’s ‘roval’ hybrid tracks. In 1955, the oval was rebuilt with bankedcorners, and at 4.25 km (2.64 mi) in length, the banked oval produced speedsthat were frightening by the standards of the day. Complicating the matter was that there wereno barriers in the corners to prevent cars from leaving the track and becomingairborne. The 1955 death of two-time Formula1 champion Alberto Ascari and the 1961 crash of Wolfgang von Trips in which he and 14 spectatorsdied led to Formula 1 abandoning the banked oval portion of the track (althoughthose crashes occurred on the road course, the speeds of the oval wereconsidered to be too great). Despite theinstallation of chicanes before the corners and protective crash barriers,another death, this time directly on the banked section, led to theabandonment of the oval section by 1969. The oval section exists today in a state of arresteddecay and is a popular sightseeing attraction. 42drivers in total have died at Monza since its opening, but thankfully nonesince 1999.

The road course appended to the original oval is slowly being reclaimed bythe surrounding forest.

1928 painting ofAlbert Divo taking on the banking at Montlhery in a Delage Torpedo. Source: The Lordprice Collection, http://www.lordprice.co.uk/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=MotorSport. Licensedunder the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike2.5 Licence.

Montlhéry(officially Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry) lies in the southern exurbs of Paris. An attempt to replicate high-speed ovals suchas Brooklands, Indianapolis, and Monza in France, it was a 2.55 km (1.58 mi)banked track in which cars reached in excess of 230 km/h (120 mph). Later, an endurance road course was appendedto it making for a massive 12.5 km (7.8 mi) circuit which unfortunately provedto be fatal in 1925 to AntonioAscari, father of Alberto. Most ofthe road circuit has been abandoned, and the oval track, which has not been certifiedfor racing in over a decade, has had three chicanes and an outside roadsection added to it to remove high speeds, meaning only half of the originalring is actually used.

Further Reading

Brooklands Museum Trust (2012). History of Brooklands. BrooklandsMuseum. Available at http://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/index.php?/history. Accessed 9 February 2012.

Formula One World Championship (2005). The hidden history of the Monza banking. 30 August 2005. Available at http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2005/8/3500.html. Accessed 9 February 2012.

Montlhéry sur internet (2003). Montlhéry's motor-racing track. 1 May 2003. Available at http://www.montlhery.com/autodrom_eng.htm. Accessed 9 February 2012.

A Trip Back in Time

2012-02-06T01:57:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be it; the week that The Basement Geographer finally missed an update. A week out of the office in Vancouver followed by a week of catch-up at work and then the ultimate task: a long-overdue three-day cleaning-out of the eponymous basement (along with the rest of the house, of course). Over the years, more than a few metric tonnes of random stuff had accumulated in these walls. While the front rooms and the kitchen have always been kept up nicely, it was important to prevent the rest of the house from looking a like scene out of Hoarders, and with the help of friends and family it was time to reclaim my living space (best comment of the cleanout from my friend Grenier: ‘Holy f**k, you have a Jacuzzi under here? I seriously thought for ten years this was just a giant walk-in closet.’).

In and amongst all the boring stuff that was donated togoodwill, shredded, recycled, or junked (amongst them, approximately 38 billiondiscarded drafts of my master’s thesis – I kept the good one, don’t worry; about25 years’ worth of editions of various desktop reference books that all seemed toend right around the time Wikipedia came into being; a pile of ‘high-tech’ early-90s32KB electronic organisers people seemed to enjoy sending me for Christmas; anddoes anyone know how I could possibly have wound up with FIVE VCRs, because Isure don’t) was plenty of stuff I hadn’t seen in years, and some things I hadn’tseen in decades: a 1975 Fischler’s HockeyEncyclopedia (‘Stan Fishl-ah in the studio here at Nass-ahr Coliseum. At the end of two periods, it’s Islandahs 2,Flyahs 2...’); a complete set of 1977-editionColliers’Merit Students Encyclopedias; a original Merlin (‘You see, kids,a Merlin was a red plastic brick with lights people used to play tic-tac-toeon...’); plenty of old family trinkets and whatnots; and, amazingly, an notebookfrom elementary school. All of thesewould have had to have survived multiple moves over the past thirty-whateveryears.

How this notebook survived, I have no idea, since I thoughtI had junked all of them long ago (one of my end-of-year grade-school ritualswas purging myself of school by tearing out last year’s notes and throwing themin the fireplace). I’m glad I didn’t,because when I opened one of them up I was greeted not just by oldEnglish-class journals or mathematics problems, but by maps: maps of imaginary placesI’d plot out during lulls in class (other kids doodled; I drew maps). Being hand-drawn by a kid somewhere between 8and 10 years old, they’re pretty crude, of course, but I figured it’d be fun toscan them and put them up here (contrast-adjusted due to some weathering byage); a glimpse into the daydreaming grade-school mind of a proto-geographerthat should be good for a chuckle.

The ‘Condensed Plan’(age 8)

Yikes. Penmanship was definitely not my forte atthis point (or drawing straight lines, apparently). I can tell I had probably just returned froma visit to the grandparents in Kimberley, BC, since many of the streets in thisone share names with those in Kimberley (also notice ‘McLaren’ and ‘Williams’streets, which in retrospect at least means this map aged better than if I hadnamed them ‘Tyrrell’and ‘Brabham’). I can’t imagine the intersection of AndersonBoulevard and Central Avenue being especially safe for drivers. Modern-day TBG would dock grade-school TBGserious marks for labelling streets below the line instead of above. Plus, no scales or north arrows on any ofthese, which would technically make them diagrams, not maps. For shame, grade-school Kyle, for shame.

The ‘Scrabble Plan’(age 9-10ish?)

I call this one the ‘ScrabblePlan’ because if I can recall I literally designed the map after the shape ofthe board at the end of a game of Scrabble, producing a city plan heavy oncrescents and low on functionality. Justimagine the hell of trying to find an address on Delgado Boulevard. It lookslike a little grease got on this one or something, since you can see right throughthe back of the big map I drew on the other side. Also evident is that I forgot to name thecross street joining Krupp Street (atthis point I had read a decent amount about the Industrial Revolution but not enoughabout World War II, apparently) toHouse Crescent. I imagine any townunfortunate enough to employ the Scrabble Plan would have a lot of openparkland, apartment blocks, and a total lack of a central business district.

The ‘Twin City Plan’(age 9-10ish?)

Here, I’m stillfascinated by grids, but have attempted to tackle the conundrum of cities builton two different grids that intersectat angles. I must be getting savvierwith design at this point in time (or really good at just pilfering from othermaps I saw), for at the top of the map we see a couple of plannedneighbourhoods that wouldn’tlook too out of place in many neighbourhoods builtin the mid-20th century (very Clarence Stein-ish). Then again, considering my grid solution wasjust to join them with really long arcs, I may have just been a grade schoolkid drawing lines on paper based on random city maps. There are plenty of British Columbia placenames peppering this map (too many to name), plus some good North American TVreferences from a kid who watch way too much telly back in the day (Eubanks,Carson, Dawson, Keaton, Forsythe, Barker). ‘Eno Court’ must have been a reference to the antacid because there wasno way I was hip enough yet to know about Brian Eno.

The ‘Trying Too HardPlan’ (age 9-10ish?)

This one’s a step upfrom the Scrabble Plan, at least. Now we’vegot arterial parkways, planned subdivisions, cloverleaf interchanges andmerging lanes (although it looks like I tried another Scrabble Plan in thesoutheast just for good measure). Infact, I think I’ve actually been to more than a few places like this: a city witha population that’s long outgrown its grid, expands haphazardly into thesurrounding farmland, sucks up another town with its own pseudo-grid, fills theintervening space with industrial areas and half-baked development, and thenonly begins developing coherent subdivisions in the peripheries once anyopportunities to properly redevelop the central city have been lost. Awesome;I inadvertently created the Central Okanagan. As for the street names: Krieger? Zimmerman? Woodstock? Hendrix? Cohen? Costello? My folks had good records (and bad ones, as I was all toopainfully aware; notice the lack of a REO Speedwagon Street, Styx Crescent, orChristopher Cross Road). I’m noticing someof-the-day television references as well: Kravitz, Schneider, McMahon.

The ‘ElementarySchool New Urbanist Plan’ (age 10)

Now here’s a step up. Look at everything we’ve got here: allprimary and arterial thruways coloured, a dedicated industrial zone, and plentyof self-contained neighbourhoods with curvilinear thru streets. The grid is supposed to be the centralbusiness district (ten-year-old Kyle still never thought of using a straightedge to draw it for some reason). Whoknows what actual maps I was adapting from to make these, but not bad for a ten-year-olddoodling, I guess.

BONUS MAPS!

These two sheets fell out of an old binder; part of a 4^th-gradeattempt to draw the entire province of British Columbia freehand with notracing. I got about five sheets inbefore I realised how much time it would take to actually do it properly andpromptly scrapped the project, but here’s a couple of sheets that survived. Notice that when I made a mistake the pencilcrayons never quite fully erased:

Well, I hope that was as fun for you as it was embarrassing forme. At least this goes to show I had ahealthy imagination as a kid, and that should always be encouraged. After all, we have to start somewhere.

A Collection of Geography-Related Films and Shorts, Part II: The Time-lapse Travel Edition

2012-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Every few months, The Basement Geographer brings you an assemblage of short films from around the Internet featuring geography and landscape in a prominent manner. For the previous instalment of films, click here.

After my own travels through the winter insanity of western Canada these past two weeks (I’m a winter person by nature so I don’t mind, but I can see how others might), I got to browsing about other people’s arduous long-distance travels by vehicles, which led to a lot of links to various time-lapse videos of long-distance trips. Add that to the fact that one of my good friends I was visiting while out on the west coast is an avid time-lapsephotographer, and it just seemed like an omen to make the next geography video article an all-time-lapse edition. If you’re looking to see entire countries in just minutes from your desktop, think of this as express sightseeing. Sit back and enjoy!

Panama Canal

This collection of videos begins with a breathtaking journeyfrom the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean via the flooded rainforest of thePanama Canal. Taken from the top of acruise ship, the time-lapse demonstrates the sheer scale of both the canal and ofthe artificial Gatun Lake,which flooded 425 km² of forest in order to facilitate the canal.

Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk,United Kingdom – Tønsberg, Vestfold, Norway

Speaking of boats, there are multiple boats involved in the formof ferries in this journey that begins in southeastern England and heads acrossthe North Sea to the Netherlands and then up through Germany, Denmark andSweden before ending in Norway’s oldest city,Tønsberg.

London, UnitedKingdom – Zurich, Switzerland and the Channel Tunnel

If you’re not a boat fan, another option for travelling fromthe UK to Europe is the Channel Tunnel. While the actual tunnel part of the time-lapse is a bit boring from the driver’spoint-of-view (drive into container, wait a few minutes, drive off), this video is still quiteinteresting due to the presence of the dashboard clock within the viewframe,giving you an idea of the actual driving time between the two cities.

If you’re looking for a time-lapse of the Chunnel inparticular, a better time-lapse is this one where the camerahas actually been mounted on the front of a Eurostar train between Paris andLondon.

Jersey

Speaking of the English Channel, here’ a relaxing drivearound the isle of Jersey. Lots ofwinding roads and beaches in this one.

Antrim CoastRoad

Maybe my favourite of the bunch is this drive along the coastof Northern Ireland on the famous section of the A2 highway known as the Antrim Coast Road. The video calls itself ‘Best Driving Road inthe World?’, and it’s hard to argue. Fewthings are more fun than a twisty coastal drive with plenty of farms,picturesque villages, and rugged coastlines.

Hong Kong Island – Lantau Island,Hong Kong

For a less leisurely island drive, there’s this time-lapseof a trip to Lantau, the largest island of Hong Kong. It begins with the skyscrapers andexpressways of Kowloon and ends with the winding mountain roads of southLantau.

Tokyo,Japan at Night

Watching this video is almost like playing a video game orriding a roller coaster.

Collingwood, Ontario –Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada

A 3 800 km (2 360 mi) journey across the bulk of Canada injust 35 hours during the waning days of winter. The highlight may be driving through the snowsheds in the Selkirk Mountains atnight in the final minute of the video, which is a mesmerising experience atregular speed, let alone this speed.

Charlottetown, Prince EdwardIsland – Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

A party rock band from Ottawa named HellBros! recorded their 2011 cross-Canadatour via time-lapse. Since the band wasplaying their gigs at night (naturally), their daytimes were spent travelling,meaning we get to see the entire country traversed in daylight in this video.

Anchorage, Alaska – Pine Bluff,Arkansas, United States

From Alaska, across western Canada, and then south to Arkansasat 2 frames per minute. Very interestinghow the trip accelerates once the contiguous US border is reached.

Lemaire Channel, Antarctica

Another boat-bound journey. Watch this cruise ship navigate through the icebergs on the west coastof the Antarctic Peninsula. Theinterface of frozen mountains and placid ocean is stunning.

Dakar, Senegal – Bissau,Guinea-Bissau

A 20-minute time-lapse of the journey between the twocapitals, taking in everything from savanna to coastal marshlands, roadsidevillages to large cities to wilderness, expressways to dirt roads, and evenvisits with armed soldiers.

R540, Mpumalanga, SouthAfrica

Thanks to the vast repository of imagery in Google StreetView, one can even make time-lapse videos of locations across the planetwithout ever leaving the comfort of home. Below is such a video documenting the length of the R540 regional roadin western Mpumalanga (you’ll notice that it occasionally moves from one sideof the road to the other, giving the impression at times that one is travellingbackwards in the wrong-hand lane).

Earth from Space

Finally, the ultimate travel time-lapses: time-lapse viewsrecorded from the International Space Station. These stunning views not only show the Earth at night with cities glowing bright yellow,but the ionosphere is visible as a thin line over the horizon, and in the secondvideo the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) even make an appearance.

The Largest Cities With the Shortest Names

2012-02-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

We’ve talked before on this site about the eightScandinavian villages named Å, and there are a few other places in the world with just one letter for a name, but what one-letter town can actually claim to be the largest? Not too many people can claim to live in such uniquely-named locales.

The former leader in this category was Y, Alaska,located about a 90-minute drive north of Anchorage, with a 2010 censuspopulation of 1 260. Y takes its namefrom the shape of the intersection of the George Parks Highwayand the Talkeetna Spur Road, and is a largely rural residential area with a fewbusinesses and services along the highway. The town is not an incorporated municipality, and as such has littlecontrol over its legal name, as was shown when itsname was changed in the most recent census to the more generic Susitna North. The name change is recent enough that thename ‘Y’ still shows up in online mapping services, and it can be assumed thatY will continue to carry local cachet for some time.

The (formerly?) eponymous‘Y’.

With the renaming of Y, Alaska, there aren’t too manyremaining single-letter towns around the world, most notably the other town named Y inFrance and all eight Scandinavian villages named Å. These have only a couple hundred people atmost; Å the Norwegian municipality of Moskenes (knownas Å i Lofoten to distinguish it from the other ‘Å’s) is likely thelargest. With populations that tiny, it makes it difficult to compose an entire article about the subject. However, if one adds just onemore letter to the equation, this opens quite a list of cities around the worldincluding full-on metropolitan areas. Here,then, are some of the largest cities in the world with a two-letter place name(using the Latin alphabet).

Bo, SierraLeone (233 000-plus)

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There hasn’t been a census in Sierra Leone since 2004, buteven then the country’s second-largest city, Bo, was well over 140 000residents in size and is now estimatedto have a population of over 233 000, which would make it the world’slargest city with a two-letter Latin name (depending on your definition of whatactually constitutes a city versus a county in China; this article takesthe easy way out and calls them counties). Bo became the major city of the Leonean interior after the arrival ofthe railroad in 1889, and today is one of the main strongholds of theopposition SierraLeone People’s Party. The name ‘Bo’is derived from a storyabout an elephant kill, after which much meat was available fordistribution to people from surrounding villages; the Mende phrase bo-lor (‘this is yours’) was said sooften that the word bo becameassociated with the location of the kill and the feast.

Wa (66 000-plus) and Ho, Ghana (61 000-plus)

Overlooking the citiesof Wa and Ho, Ghana. Sources: F. Irving,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WaGhana.jpg and Rtevels, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ho,_Ghana.JPG. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Staying in West Africa, both the number-two and number-threecities on this list lie in Ghana (the actual population figures are likely muchhigher than these most recentnumbers available from March 2000). Wa is the capital of Ghana’s UpperWest Region; Ho is the capital of VoltaRegion. Wa, meaning ‘come’ in Wali, takes its name from its position as alongstanding regional centre to which people of various ethnicities would come,attracted by both economic opportunity and as a centre of Islam. Ho was formerly the capital of the colony of British Togoland,which existed from 1916 to 1956 beforebeing merged with the neighbouring Gold Coast in advance of itsindependence as Ghana in 1957.

Sunday morning in Ho.

Ye, Myanmar (55000-plus)

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Unfortunately, there’s not very much information to be foundon Ye, a city in Mon Stateprimarily settled by the peopleof the same name. The city isnotable for being the long-time southern terminus of the Burmese rail system,and as the locationof a 1995 ceasefire zone between the ruling military regime and theseparatist New Mon State Party. From thisarticle, it’s apparent that the flooding experienced in much of southeastAsia during the latter half of 2011 took its toll on the low-lying city.

Of, Turkey (43 293)

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An ancient Black Sea city in eastern Trabzon province, Of’sname could possibly derive from the Laz language (aKartvelian language related toGeorgian and spoken in extreme northeast Turkey and southwest Georgia) wordfor ‘village’ or ‘settlement’ (oput’e;compare with the older name for the city, Opiunte, under which the city was a Romanmilitary station). The actual citycore is quite small.

Ob, Russia (25 383)

Interestingly, most of the housing in Ob is in the form of private landplots as opposed to Soviet-style apartment housing.

Perhaps most notable for being the home of Siberia’s busiestairport (Tolmachevo,which is also the former name of this town) and as the headquarters of S7 Airlines, Russia’slargest domestic airline by passenger volume, the city of Ob is a westernsuburb of Novosibirsk, the third-largest city in Russia.

Pô, Burkina Faso (24 320)

L'hopital de Po au Burkina fasoby adanso

The capital of the province of Nahouri, Pô liesjust minutes from the Ghanaian border and as such is amain garrison location for the Burkinabe army. The city was oneof the sites of the 2011 protests by military soldiers against the governmentof President BlaiseCompaoré over unpaid wages that led to the replacement of the primeminister and regional governors (but not Compaoré, who has remained in powersince 1987).

Ba, Fiji (18 526)

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Commonly known as Ba Town in order to distinguishing fromthe surrounding BaDistrict, the city has been in the news this past week after being hit withits second devastatingflood in three years. On 26 January,Ba Town was under 1.5 to 4.5 m (5 to 15 ft) of water in what has been termed ‘one of the worst floodsever’. Much of the flooding has beenblamedon a poor drainage system.

Ōi, Japan (17 928)

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The last of the three Japanese towns named Ōi to retainsits separate status, this Ōi near Kanagawa is a small (by Japanese standards,anyway) city based in agriculture, with more than 10 percent of the city area devotedto rice cultivation.

Os, Hordaland, Norway (16 055)

Municipal hall, Os, Hordaland.

One of three Norwegian locales named Os, this municipalityhas become an exurb of Bergen in recent years. Its most famous attraction is the ruins of the Lyse Abbey (Lyse Mariakloster), founded in 1146and abandoned in 1537 after the state adoption of Lutheranism in Norway.

Further Reading

Agence France-Presse (2011). Burkina Faso gets new PM as mutiny spreads. Expatica,19 April 2011. Available at http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/burkina-faso-gets-new-pm-as-mutiny-spreads_143478.html. Accessed 1 February 2012.

Andersen, P.C. (2012). Village Names. Sierra Leone Web. Available at http://www.sierra-leone.org/villagenames.html. Accessed 1 February 2012.

Anderson, T. (2002). Wa home page. 19 January2002. Available at http://www.duke.edu/~twa/. Accessed 1 February 2012.

Chaudhary, F. (2012). ‘Worse than 2009’. The Fiji Times, 26 January 2012. Available at http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=191722. Accessed 1 February 2012.

Nasiko, R. (2012). Flash floods wreak havoc. The Fiji Times, 24 January 2012. Available at http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=191573. Accessed 1 February 2012.

South, A. (2008). Mon Nationalist Movements: insurgency,ceasefires and political struggle. Bangkok: Mon Unity League. Available at https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/47076/3/Chulalongkorn%20University%20Mon%20Seminar%20October%202007.pdf. Accessed 1 February 2012.

Defining International Borders in the Rub’ al Khali

2012-01-30T00:50:00.000-08:00

For most of the post-war 20^th century, anyone looking at a map of the Arabian Peninsula would be greeted by something likethis:

Courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, the University of Texas Libraries, TheUniversity of Texas at Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/saudi_arabia_rel_1974.jpg.

Notice the almost total lack of defined boundaries in thesouthern half of the peninsula surrounding the Rub' al Khali desert ;just vague indications of where jurisdictions lie (the above map from 1974doesn’t even attempt to make a separation between Oman and the United ArabEmirates, for example). As theeven-increasing hunt for petroleum resources beneath the sands ramped upthroughout the latter part of the century, it became increasingly necessary todefine jurisdiction over these lands in order to determine which countrieswould obtain access to these resources. As well, defining borders assisted in promoting national security anddefence. By the mid-1990s, defined lineswere finally present on the southern Arabian map. Below, a look at how each border came to bedefined.

Saudi Arabia/Qatar

Saudi Arabia and Qatar initially reached a border agreementback in 1965. The agreement, however,was never legally ratified, and was eventually thrown out completely in 1992when Qatar accusedSaudi troops of attacking a Qatari border post, killing two border guards andkidnapping a third. Saudi Arabia claimedthis was the result of a conflict between rival Bedouin tribes and not adeliberate action. Traditionally closelytied, relations warmed up again soon enough, and a technical committee wasassembled to fix the boundary both on land and at sea for good. Negotiations concluded in 1999, and atreaty was signed in 2001. As far asland boundaries are concerned, it is superficially the same de facto boundary agreed upon in 1965.

Qatar/United ArabEmirates/Saudi Arabia

Those looking at a map of the UAE today may wonder whatborder with Qatar is involved, since the two countries do not touch. The issue of whether or not the two countrieslegally share a border has been up in the air since 1974, when Saudi Arabiaobtained a second corridor to the Persian Gulf through the emirate of Abu Dhabithat included the section bordering Qatar.

Note the differencealong the border with Qatar between these maps from 1984 and 1995. Courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library MapCollection, the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas atAustin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/unitedarabemirates.jpgand http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/united_arab_emirates_rel95.jpg.

From an official standpoint, the Saudi/Emirati borderremains officially undefined even though an agreement was reached in 1974 underthe Treaty of Jeddah. The issue is that the agreement was reached between Saudi Arabia and theemirate of Abu Dhabi on behalf of the UAE, as opposed to the UAE governmentitself which has never actually ratified the agreement (this is still the de facto border shown on most maps thesedays). Again, also of issue is that thisagreement affects the Qatari border due to the small 40-km (25-mi) KhorDuweihin corridor that Abu Dhabi gave to Saudi Arabia under the 1974 treaty. Saudi Arabia registeredthe treaty at the United Nations in 1993, but the UAE has yet to do so.

United ArabEmirates/Oman

The UAE and Oman finally defined their border in 2002. Prior to this, the only defined borders werethe various exclaves of Oman lying within or next to UAE territory (a legacy ofthe two countries’ time under British protectorates). Immediately after the delineation of theborder, the UAE began constructinga barrier along the Omani border primarily for the purpose of keeping outillegal immigrants, drugs, and terrorists. This is a source of some consternation due to the new problems for Oman intrying to access Omani exclaves, and in the case of Al Ain(UAE) and Buraimi(Oman), a pair of neighbouring cities that previously had a large amount ofinteraction and co-dependency.

Oman/Yemen

At no point in time did Oman ever come to a defined borderagreement with SouthYemen. Soon after the reunification of Yemen in 1990, Oman and the newRepublic of Yemen signed aborder agreement in October 1992. There was still an issue with this arrangement as Saudi Arabia claimed part ofthe territory involved, but ultimately nothing came from it.

Oman/Saudi Arabia

The two countries first agreed on a border in 1990. This past December, Oman and Saudi Arabia signedan agreement to construct a massive border control complex on the Omaniside of the border. This came after the announcementof the firstoverland vehicle route between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia/Yemen

Thelast indeterminate boundary in Arabia was that between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Negotiations began in 1992 similar to Yemen’stalks with Oman (delayed due to Yemen’s siding with Iraq in the Gulf War), butin this case there was a far longer border to demarcate. The only part of the border that had beendetermined previously was the 1934 Taif line thatran from the Red Sea ashort distance into the Asir Mountain highlands. Due to the 1994 Yemeni civilwar, this agreement took some years to reach, and serious negotiations onlybegan in 1996. Like the 1974 agreementwith Abu Dhabi, the ultimate 2000 agreement with Yemen was also called the Treaty ofJeddah. This treaty employed tribalallegiances of villages in order to determine the western part of the border inthe more mountainous regions; from there, the border follows a series ofgeometric lines to the border with Oman.

The net result of all of the above negotiations is a mapthat currently looks like this:

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While this looks finite, the ultimate final delineationdepends on the UAE government ratifying the Saudi Arabia-Abu Dhabi borderagreement at some point, and Qatar, whose southeast border if affected by this agreement, also acceding to it.

Further Reading

Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (2011). Background Note: United Arab Emirates. U.S.Department of State, 29 December 2012. Available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5444.htm. Accessed 27 January 2012.

Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (2012). Background Note: Oman. U.S.Department of State, 5 January 2012. Available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35834.htm. Accessed 26 January 2012.

Curzon (2010). TheBizarre Emirati Borders. Coming Anarchy, 16 January 2010. Available at http://cominganarchy.com/2010/01/16/the-bizarre-emirati-borders/. Accessed 30 January 2012.

International Estimate (2000). The Yemeni-Saudi Border Treaty. The Estimate12(13). Available at http://www.theestimate.com/public/063000.html. Accessed 30 January 2012.

Muscat Daily (2011). Pactfor Rub al Khali border complex signed. 7 December 2011. Available at http://www.muscatdaily.com/Archive/Oman/Pact-for-Rub-al-Khali-border-complex-signed. Accessed 27 January 2012.

People’s Daily (2001). Qatar, Saudi Arabia Sign Border Agreement. 22 March 2001. Available at http://english.people.com.cn/english/200103/22/eng20010322_65657.html. Accessed 30 January 2012.

Saudi Arabia (1993). No.30250: Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates Agreement on the delimitation ofboundaries (with exchange of letters and map). Signed at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,on 21 August 1974. United Nations Treaty Series 1993 29-35. Available at http://untreaty.un.org/unts/120001_144071/16/2/00012854.pdf. Accessed 27 January 2012.

Schofield, R. (1999). Negotiating the Saudi-Yemeni international boundary. TheBritish-Yemeni Society, 31 March 1999. Available at http://www.al-bab.com/bys/articles/schofield00.htm. Accessed 27 January 2012.

Whitaker, B. (2000). The Treaty of Jeddah, 2000. al-bab, 12 June 2000. Available at http://www.al-bab.com/yemen/pol/int5.htm. Accessed 27 January 2012.

The Richat Structure: Eye of the Sahara

2012-01-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

In central Mauritania, straddling the border between the Tiris Zemmour and Adrar regions, lies one of the most unique rock formations on Earth. Surrounded by thousands of square miles ofnearly featureless desert, this formation is readily visible from space.

Source: J. Shannon, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nice1top1sorted/14624780/. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) licence.

Source: Viva NOLA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/halesfamily/29862421/. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NoDerivs2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) licence.

From above, it looks like a giant bullseye, an ammonite shell,or perhaps a cross-section of a giant jawbreaker candy. This 40-50 km (25-30 mi) in diameter seriesof concentric circles is known as the Richat Structure. It’s not manmade. It’s not the site of anancient meteor crater, as many people originally postulated. These concentric circles are actually alternatinglayers of sedimentary, metamorphic, andigneous rocks that were pushed upward in a symmetrical anticline, geologicdome, afractureless upwarping of rock strata from below due to a small incursionof magma. The Richat dome happened to bepushed upward in a rather neat circle thanks to lithospheric weakness duringthe final separation of West Africa from South America around 100 millionyears ago. Over time, the top of thedome was eroded away, exposed the pushed-up inner layers of the dome andproducing the current circular formation.

A diagram of an anticline. The original dome formed by the anticline hasbeen eroded away, leaving the oldest rocks in the formation (i.e., the rocks originally located in the bottomstrata) exposed in the centre.

As one gets closer to the centre of the Richat Structure, theolder the rock layers become (these are the layers located at the bottom of theoriginal dome). The sedimentary rocklayers are more easily eroded, while the layers of metamorphic rocks like quartziteand igneous rocks such as rhyolites, gabbros, carbonatites and kimberlitesare more resistant, leading to the formation of small escarpments and cliffsaround the edges of the volcanic rock rings, and rocky, brecciaed terrain asopposed to the surrounding desert sands. 32 different volcanic dikes and sills have beenidentified throughout the structure; these are the places where underlyingmagma was actually able to break through the overlying rock. At the centre, or ‘bullseye’, of theformation lies a limestone-dolomiteshelf that encloses a 3 km-diameter breccia (aswell as some huts that serve as a sort of hotel for curious outsiders).

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The video below is in French, but featuresreadily-understandable graphics of the uplift/erosion process, as well asimagery of the rocky surface of the Richat Structure at ground level.

Further Reading

Evans, R.J. (2011). TheRichat Structure – Earth’s Bull's-Eye. Kuriositas, 20 March 2011. Available at http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/03/richat-structure-earths-bulls-eye.html. Accessed 29 January 2012.

Matton, G. (2008). The Cretaceous Richat Complex (Mauritania);A Peri-Atlantic Alcaline Process. Saguenay:Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Availableat http://bibvir.uqac.ca/theses/030084214/030084214.pdf. Accessed 29 January 2012.

NASA Earth Observatory (2002). Richat Structure, Mauritania. 26 June 2002. Available at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=2561. Accessed 29 January 2012.

Schweda, M. (2005). Tidjikdja,9 days desert. This Fab Trek, 18 December 2005. Available at http://www.thisfabtrek.com/journey/africa/mauritania/20051218-tidjikdja.php. Accessed 29 January 2012.

Magic Roundabouts of England

2012-01-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

Traffic roundabouts as we know them today are a rather recent refinement, having been only developed and refined during the 1960s. The leader of the roundabout movement was Frank Blackmore, a traffic engineer with the United Kingdom’s Transport Research Laboratory who realised their advantages both in making traffic flows safer and in their cost-effectiveness compared to other types of junctions. Not only did Blackmore successfully campaign for the inauguration of new roundabouts across the UK in which traffic entering the circle would yield to traffic on the right (a major development in traffic safety design which resulted in the construction of thousands of roundabouts across the UK and eventually tens of thousands around the world), Blackmore also invented outright the mini-roundabout; a roundabout with no central island that could be employed in roadways with limited space for a roundabout. Drivers at a mini-roundabout navigate around small painted circles or low mounds placed directly in the roadway. Not only did Blackmore successfully minimise the concept of a roundabout, he also took the concept of the roundabout to the other extreme when he designed a type of massive, complex intersection in the early 1970s that became known as ‘magic roundabouts’ after a popular children’s programme.

To the outsider, a magic roundabout may seem completelybaffling to navigate: not only is there a central circular ring road whichitself often takes the appearance of a roundabout, but the circle road itselfcontains numerous mini-roundabouts within it. The mostfamous (or infamous) is the original MagicRoundabout on the A4312 in Swindon,Wiltshire, converted by Blackmore from a previously-existing conventionalroundabout into something far greater. Here, drivers enter the outer clockwise loop of the ring road, uponwhich they can encounter any one of five mini-roundabouts which have to benavigated in order to access one of the six different roadways that enter thejunction. Once a driver has entered thecircle and navigated a mini-roundabout, the driveris sent into the main roundabout in the centre, which counter-intuitively operatescounter-clockwise. The driver drivesaround until reaching the desired exit and leaves the main roundabout in orderto navigate around another mini-roundabout to leave.

A schematic of theMagic Roundabout in Swindon. Source: Hkkng, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swindon-Magic-Roundabout.svg. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

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While locals adapted to the configuration, become proficientat navigating the multiple paths, and made the junction a local point of pride(evenselling ‘I Survived the Magic Roundabout’ t-shirts), visitors to Swindonare often rather baffled by the Magic Roundabout, becoming stuck for longperiods of time or finding themselves heading in the wrong direction. In 2005, the Magic Roundabout was votedas Britain’s worst roundabout by a survey of motorists, and Auto Express proclaimed it one of the tenworst junctions in the entire world in 2007. The junction works justfine, though. Because vehicles areslowed down considerably when travelling through, accidents are reduceddrastically. As well, the large numberof turning lanes in such a compressed area means the junction can handle a fargreater amount of vehicles compared to a regular junction, actually improving overall traffic flow even withthe slower speeds.

Finishing second in that 2005 survey was Blackmore’s othermagic roundabout design: the Plough Roundabout constructed in 1973 in Hemel Hempstead,Hertfordshire. Interestingly, in 2011, thissame roundabout was voted as Britain’s best thanks to its charm. Hemel’s Magic Roundabout was also converted from astandard roundabout, but the main island takes the form of a proper ringroad more so than the Swindon version (i.e.,no auxiliary traffic islands separating the inner ring from the outer ring). The Hemel version, however, features sixmini-roundabouts in a ring as opposed to five, and also features a river (the River Gade)running through the middle of the traffic island and then under the ringroad. When it first appeared, the alignmentwas considered so initimidating at first that policemen were positioned oneach of the mini-roundabouts to direct traffic. Again, itmay scare visitors, but it works in making traffic safer.

The Magic Roundabout(a.k.a. the Plough Roundabout) in Hemel Hempstead. Source: Stannered, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magicroundabout_hemel.svg. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution 2.0 Genericlicence.

The magic roundabout concept applied in Swindon and HemelHempstead was also applied in Colchester,Essex around the same time. Similar toHemel but unlike Swindon, the Colchester Magic Roundabout has no internaltraffic islands, simply the main island in the middle. A previous experimentalroundabout was abandoned at this junction due to a high accident rate astraffic was only permitted to flow in one direction. The improved Blackmore-style magic roundaboutwas then applied to much success.

The Magic Roundabout, Colchester (officially known as Greenstead Roundabout).

In the wake of Swindon and Hemel Hempstead’s magicroundabouts, other suchjunctions were constructed around England. One can only think that at some point, this will be tried in othercountries, creating legions of new drivers who will be needlessly intimidatedby them around the world.

The Magic Roundabout, High Wycombe.

Ankerdrive,Tamworth, Staffordshire (knownlocally as ‘The Egg’) replaces the mini-roundabouts with full-on grassedtraffic islands.

The Denham Roundabout, Buckinghamshire.

Hatton Cross on the Heathrow Airport Perimeter Road.

Further Reading

BBC Wiltshire (2005). Beware The Magic Roundabout! 16November 2005. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/11/22/pwaod_roundabout_feature.shtml. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Damn Cool Pictures (2011). The Magic Roundabout. 15 February2011. Available at http://www.damncoolpictures.com/2011/02/magic-roundabout.html. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Disdale, J. (2007). World’s worst junctions revealed. Auto Express, September2007. Available at http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/210607/worlds_worst_junctions.html. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Easier (2005). Britsvote on the best and worst roundabouts. 20 December 2005. Available at http://www.easier.com/279-brits-vote-on-the-best-and-worst-roundabouts.html. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Grewe, A. (2009). TheMagic Roundabout. The Armin Grewe Homepage. Availableat http://www.armin-grewe.com/holiday/wiltshire/swindon-roundabout.htm. Accessed 24 January 2012.

King, L. (2009). Hemel Hempstead's Magic Roundabout is one of Britain's scariest roads. BerkhamstedPeople, 30 November 2009. Availableat http://www.berkhamstedpeople.co.uk/news/Hemel-Hempstead-s-Magic-Roundabout-Britain-s-scariest-roads/story-4517230-detail/story.html. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Marshall, C. (2011). The Magic Roundabout. CBRD. Available at http://www.cbrd.co.uk/indepth/magicroundabout/. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Rhodes, B. (2008). Frank Blackmore. The Guardian, 21 June 2008. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/jun/21/6. Accessed 24 January 2012.

SwindonWeb (n.d.). The Magic Roundabout. Availableat http://www.swindonweb.com/index.asp?m=8&s=115&ss=289&t=THE+MAGIC+ROUNDABOUT. Accessed 24 January 2012.

The Elfstedentocht

2012-01-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (5 FEBRUARY): A recent cold snap with nighttime temperatures below -10 Celsius has raised the possibility of an Elfstedentocht within the next couple of weeks. A press conference on 6 February will hopefully give an answer as to whether or not the eleven-city race will be held for the first time since 1997.

SECOND UPDATE (6 FEBRUARY): Race organisers state that there is a 'cautious chance' that the race could occur this month, but ice thickness needs to improve in the south portion of Friesland before it can happen.

For the fourteenth consecutive January, it appears as though there will be no Elfstedentocht. One of, if not the, most hallowed sporting traditions of the Netherlands, the Elfstedentocht (‘Eleven Cities Tour’) is a gruelling 200-km (120 mi) speed skating race held on the various frozen canals which join together the eleven traditional cities in the province of Friesland. Around 15 000 skaters, both professional and amateur, take part in the race, and millions of spectators either watch on television or gather along the route to watch the race (approximately one in eight Dutch eyeballs are glued to the race) – when it’s actually held. Since the last edition in 1997, it has simply never been cold enough in Friesland to produce natural ice thick enough to hold the race.

The Elfstedentocht routebegins and ends in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden, movingclockwise around the western half of the province. Source: Torsade de Pointes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elfstedentocht-Plaatsnamen.png. Licensedunder the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

The tradition of skating the eleven-city circuit dates backto at least 1760. Accomplishing theskating of the entire route became a source of pride amongst localresidents. As early as 1890, anorganised tour of the canals had been proposed, and in 1909 the Koninklijke Vereniging De Friesche Elf Steden (Association of the ElevenFrisian Cities) was created to organise such a race whenever the ice conditionsallowed for it. To complete the course,competitors must collect stamps at each of the eleven cities plus three secretcheckpoints. Technically, it’s notcompletely all done skating: there are places between the various canals wherethe skaters must leave the track to walk over dykes, and places where theskaters must walk around thin ice. 15editions of the Elfstedentocht have been held since, including six times inJanuary and eight times in February: 1909, 1912, 1917, 1929, 1933 (a Decemberrace), 1940, 1941, 1942, 1947, 1954, 1956, 1963, 1985, 1986, and 1997.

The 1963Elfstedentocht.

The 1997 Elfstedentocht, replete with singing crowds, stamp-collecting action, injuries, and exhaustion.

As you can see by the list of dates, the ability to runeditions of the event has decreased with time. The infrequent nature of the event onlymagnifies the mystique surrounding it, as the chance to win or even competein the Elfstedentocht is so rare, and those chances are getting rarer. A2009 report stated that the weather conditions needed to produce the 15 cm(6 in) thick ice needed to run the race on the canals will likely only occuronce every 18 years on average in the 21^st century compared withonce every 7 years during the 20^th century.

A small town crowdgathers along the 1997 Elfstedentocht route. Source: T. van der Werk, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niels_Schouten4.png. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

The wild finish of the1997 race, won by Henk Angenent. Theaverage speed of the winner was 29.3 km/h (18.2 mph).

To make up for the absence of the Elfstedentocht, other similarevents have been organised elsewhere. Since 1989, the AlternativeElfstedentocht has taken place on the Weissenseein Carinthia, Austria. It doesn’tfeatures the quirky intangibles of the original Elfstedentocht such as climbingover dykes and ditches, or collecting stamps at each city, but it helps keepthe spirit of the 200-km skating race alive. And for those who like the idea of touring the eleven Frisian cities insome manner, the Fietselfstedentochtcycling tour takes place every year on the Monday after Easter (Whit Monday). It, too, features 15 000 competitors eachyear, but the distance is slightly longer – 240 km (150 mi). Indoor skating rinks in the Netherlands evenset up their own mini-Elfstedentochts for childrenand recreational skaters, replete with stamps awarded for reaching checkpoints.

Further Reading

Ames, P. (2009). Isthe end of Dutch ice skating near? Global Post, 6 December 2009. Available at http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/netherlands/091204/elfstedentocht-climate-change-ice-skating?page=full. Accessed 23 January 2012.

de Ridder, H. (2012). Een Elfstedentocht voor iedereen. de Stentor, 23 January2012. Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, 23 January 2012. Available at http://www.destentor.nl/regio/flevoland/10316294/Een-Elfstedentocht-voor-iedereen.ece. Accessed 23 January 2012.

Koninklijke VerenigingDe Friesche Elf Steden (2012). Historievan de Elfstedentocht. Available at http://www.elfstedentocht.nl/nl/de_vereniging/historie. Accessed 24 January 2012.

Wijma, G-J. (2012). Alternatieve Elfstedentocht in Oostenrijk, bijna net zo leuk als Tochtder Tochten. Available at http://www.rnw.nl/nederlands/article/alternatieve-elfstedentocht-oostenrijk-bijna-net-zo-leuk-als-tocht-der-tochten. Accessed 23 January 2012.

Ortelius’ Septentrionalium regionum descrip. (1570)

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Septentrionalium regionum descrip. (Northern region described), published in 1570 as part ofAbraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Click on map to expand (6044 x 4506).

The 16^th century Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius was a true pioneer of cartography and of geographic thought. In 1596, he would be one of the first geographers to posit the idea of what would later be known as continental drift, noting the far-too-coincidental shapes of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. His most famous work came a quarter-century earlier when he published the first modern-day atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, in 1570. While the maps themselves were not especially innovative in terms of design, theactual publication of a purposely uniform set of sheets with accompanying text bound in a book was revolutionary. As well, the maps were the leading summary of the new geographic discoveries made around the world during the 16^th century and some of the most accurate maps being made at the time. Updated on a consistent basis until 1612, the Theatrum was printed in seven languages over 31 editions.

Though the maps of the Theatrum represented the acceptedgeographic knowledge of the time, Ortelius still partook in a relatively commonpractice of the day: filling empty space with imaginary lands and dubiouslocations recorded on other cartographers’ maps and in fabled explorers' hearsay. A good example of this is the atlas platecovering the North Atlantic region (Septentrionaliumregionum descrip.). The well-exploredEuropean half of the map is readily recognisable to modern eyes even if thelocations and outlines are distorted. Bycontrast, the western and northern parts of the map are rife with phantomislands, villages and rivers that don’t exist, disproportionate representationsof Greenland and Iceland, and even an entire polar continent created fromscratch.

In the bottom left corner of the map lie four phantom islands. We see the fabled island of St.Brendan, the land supposedly discovered by the 6^th century Irishmonk while sailing in the Atlantic in a leather-hulled boat in an evangelicalmission. The mythical island persistedin some accounts all the way into the 1750s; many placed it much closer to theCanary Islands than Ortelius does here. To the southeast of St. Brendan’s island lies Brasil,another famous phantom island we’vecovered on this site before.

The giant island in green to the south of theheavily-distended Iceland is Frisland (not to be confused with the Dutch province of Friesland; note how Frisland (‘Freezeland’)is adjacent to ‘Iceland’). This islandfirst appeared in the infamous fabrication known as the Zeno map, a 1558work of the Italian Nicolo Zeno. Zeno’s map, published alongwith a set of supporting letters, purported to show the discoveries of two ofhis ancestors in the late 14^th century (evidently to get hisrelatives credit for ‘discovering’ the New World before Columbus). It was immediately taken as fact (witnessthis 1569 map of Ortelius’ contemporary/mentor, Gerard Mercator), andOrtelius himself believedthe account. In 1576, the Englishsailor Martin Frobisher believed his sighting of Greenland to be that of Frisland (and hissighting of Baffin Island later to be Greenland). Until themid-18^th century, Frisland persisted on maps separated fromGreenland by a large strait. To theeast, some also confused Frisland with the Faroe Islands, and eventually theconcept of Frisland was merged into them. Surrounding Frisland are other Zeno creationssuch as Podalida and Drogeo (supposedly inhabited by abarbarian tribe).

Notethe duplication between Ortelius’ version of Frisland and this 1569 Mercatorversion. All of the imaginary towns depicted in one map (such as Ocibar, Campa, Andefort, and Ran) appear in theother, although the surrounding islets shown are quite different.

Iceland itself, shown here with analternate name of Thule, isdepicted as split into several islands separated by large rivers, which showshow little the geography of the island was known by those outside of the Danishrealm (although islands such as Grimsey to the north areproperly depicted). To the west ofIceland are two more Zeno fabrications, Estotiland(positioned roughly where Labrador is today) and Icaria. The Zeno documents portray Estotiland asgreen and fertile with mountains and a trading partner of Greenland. Greenland is full of rivers on this map, andeven has a city on its northeast end called Alba (anothertoponym we learned about recently). In other words, other than the name and relative position of Greenland,nothing about it is correct here. Groclantis the giant green blob to the west of Greenland. It first notably appeared on Mercator’s 1569map, but as English explorers such as Frobisher and John Davis penetrated the area, its existencewas quickly disproven and it was gone from maps by 1610.

Finally, at the top of the map isthe giant mythical polar continent, anotherconcept borrowed from Mercator. Ortelius shows the land as inhabited by pygmies (‘Pigmei hic habitant’). Between the polar continent and Greenland is the island of Margas. An archipelago directly in the area of Svalbardbetween the polar continent and Norway is shown as Santi Rustene. There is a hypothesisthat Pomors from extremenorthwest Russia discovered Svalbard before Willem Barentsz, of Barents Sea fame, did in1596; the hypothesis is based on Dutch/Flemish maps of the time such as this.

FurtherReading

Booysen, R. (2008). Themythical island of Frisland. In Terra Australis Incognita, 8. Available at http://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus/87-terraproof1?start=7. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Jacobs, F. (2007). 62- Frisland, an Italian Fabrication in the North Atlantic. StrangeMaps, 12 January 2007. Available at http://bigthink.com/ideas/21111. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Kious, W.J. and R.I. Tilling (1996). Historical perspective. In ThisDynamic Earth: the Story of Plate Tectonics, 6-10. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.pdf. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Koks, F. (2002). Ortelius Atlas. American Memory: General Maps. Available at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gnrlhome.html. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Okhuizen, E. (2005). DutchPre-Barentsz Maps and the Pomor Thesis about the Discovery of Spitsbergen. ActaBorealia 22(1): 22-41.

Oleson, T.J. (2000). Zeno, Nicolò and Antonio. Dictionaryof Canadian Biography Online. Available at http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=592. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Proper, I.S. (1930). Monhegan, the cradle of New England, 25-33. Available at http://www.davistownmuseum.org/InfoZeno.html. Portland, ME: Southworth Press. Accessed 22 January 2012.

Capitals of Their Country, Not of Their Region

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Ottawa. Pretoria. Ngerulmud.

That’s right, Ngerulmud. What do these three cities share in common? Well, for one, they’re all national capitals (Ngerulmud, if you’re wondering, has been the capital of the west Pacific island nation of Palau since 2006). Even more uniquely, they’re cities which are capitals of their entire country but not of the state, province, region, or division in which they lie. Usually, national capitals are also the capitals of a surrounding jurisdiction or are separated entirely into their own national capital region (and for some cities such as Sofia, Bulgaria or Maputo, Mozambique, both). But for the three cities listed above and at least eight other national capitals, they may be national centres of power but are subordinates to other cities at the second level of government.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are much more well-knowninternationally, but Ottawa has been the capital of Canada since 1866, one yearprior to Confederation. However, it isnot the capital of the province of Ontario in which it lies. Prior to Ottawa’s designation as nationalcapital, national capital status rotated between the capitals of Ontario andneighbouring Quebec (Toronto and Quebec City, respectively). In order to quell the rivalry between the twocapitals, itwas decided in 1857 to decide on a permanent national capital in arelatively neutral location. Thedecision was referred to Queen Victoria, who decided on a small logging villagelying on the eponymous OttawaRiver which separates Ontario from Quebec, hundreds of kilometres fromeither existing capital. This would helpensure that the national capital would not conflict with bickering between theprovincial capitals. Today, Ottawa isthe fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country, but is still dwarfed byToronto, where the Ontarian capital remains.

Belmopan, Cayo, Belize

The small interior city of Belmopan is one of the newercapital cities in the western hemisphere, having been founded only in 1970 inorder to createa national capital that would be better insulated from hurricane damage. The traditional centre of the interior andcapital of Cayo District, San Ignacio, lies35 km (22 mi) to the west of Belmopan, and remains larger than the nationalcapital (at 17 000 residents, San Ignacio is the second-largest city in thecountry).

View LargerMap

Georgetown, Demerara-Mahaica, Guyana

Unlike the first two examples, Georgetown is by far theprimary city of Guyana; its metropolitan area makes up over half of thecountry’s population. Perhaps it’s thisdensity that prompted the national government to set up the capital of thepopulous Demerara-Mahaica region east of Georgetown in the relatively obscurelocale of Paradise, which hasa population of under 4 000 people (compare with the quarter-million ofGeorgetown).

Paradise is so obscurethat it doesn’t even register on Google Maps. Here on OpenStreetMap, it can be seen in small font at the right-handside of the map upon zooming in one level.

Monrovia, Montserrado, Liberia

The second-largest city proper on this list is not Ottawabut Monrovia, the capital of war-torn Liberia, with just under 1.2 million people(and by the time you read, it could very well have passed Ottawa from ametropolitan standpoint as well). Monrovia sits in Montserrado, by far the largest county of Liberia bypopulation, and pretty much the entire population of Montserrado lives insideMonrovia. Although Monrovia isconsidered part of the county, the administrative functions of the city aregoverned by a separated municipal corporation, and so the county capital liesin Bensonville, population just 520.

This is the capital of a county with nearly 1.2 millionpeople.

Palikir, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia

Prior to 1989, the capitals of both Micronesia and the stateof Pohnpei were located in Kolonia(not to be confused with Colonia,the capital of the westernmost state of Yap). That year, the national capital was movedjust 6 km (4 mi) down the road to Palikir. The new government administrative buildings were built on the site of anabandoned Japanese airfield.

Source: Aotearoa, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pohnpei_Island.png. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic licence.

Naypyidaw, Mandalay Region, Myanmar (Burma)

The saga of Naypyidaw, the sprawling, empty capitalconstructed by the Burmese military, has been coveredin detail here on this site. WhileNaypyidaw is directly controlled by the national government, it still remains apart of Mandalay Region, and nothing anytime soon is going to take away thecity of Mandalay’s statusas the primary city of northern Myanmar.

Ngerulmud, Melekeok, Palau

For most of Palau’s modern history dating back to Japaneserule, the capital was located in Koror,the country’s largest city located in the state of the same name. The 1981 constitution requiredthe country to move the capital northward to the main island of Palau, Babeldaob. This transition was completed in 2006 withthe move to the village of Ngerulmud, Melekeok, located adjacent to the town ofMelekeok proper, which serves as that state’s capital.

Source: Aotearoa, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:State_of_Melekeok.png. Licensedunder the CreativeCommons Attribution 3.0 Unportedlicence.

Apia, Tuamasaga, Samoa

Apia may be the only designated city in the entire country,but the heavy importance of tradition here dictates that the capital ofTuamasaga district must remain in the village of Afega, which isresponsible for coordinating the local affairs of the entire district. These districts wereformed long before European arrival.

Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, WesternProvince, Sri Lanka

When Sri Lanka moved its parliament to the suburban city ofKotte in 1982 so that it could sit on the site of the palace of the firstminister of VikramabahuIII, a 14^th-century king, the commercial and administrativeheart of the country remained in the old capital, Colombo. When legislative power was finally devolvedto the traditional Sri Lankan provinces in 1987, the provincial offices wereplaced in Colombo.

Lobamba, Hhohho, Swaziland

The traditional and legislative capital of Swaziland,Lobamba lies adjacent to Mbabane, theadministrative capital and largest city of Swaziland. With a fraction of the population of Mbabane(5 800 versus 100 000), it’s probably of little surprise that Mbabane is thedistrict capital.

Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

Whether one considers Pretoria these days to be a city ordistrict within the City of Tshwane MetropolitanMunicipality into which it was amalgamated in 2000 or synonymous with theentire municipality itself (the debate over the potential renamingof Pretoria to Tshwane and whether or not it has actually taken placealready is a very controversialissue in South Africa) does not affect this category whatsoever, as the1994 reorganisation of South African provinces made Johannesburg, not Pretoria,the capital of Gauteng. Gauteng was anew province formed out of the southern part of the old Transvaal, whosecapital was Pretoria.

Source: Htonl, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Gauteng_with_municipalities_labelled_%282011%29.svg. Licensedunder the CreativeCommons Attribution 3.0 Unportedlicence.

Some Unique Martial Arts from Around the World

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The various cultures and countries of the world enjoy their own distinct sporting traditions, and every region of the world can lay claimto having developed their own sports from scratch and/or having adapted an existing game to such a point that they can truly call it their own. Many of those sports derived from local rituals, combat techniques or warfare simulations. Take, for example, the ballgame played by pre-Columbian inhabitants of Mexico and Central America, which was not only a recreational activity but also a proxy for warfare (often used for resolving conflicts without the use of external violence) and a complex ritual based upon religious beliefs in which losers were often sacrificed. Or the national sport of Afghanistan, buzkashi, in which players on horseback attempt to grab a goat/calf carcass and pitch it toward the goal; this game is derived from ancient practices of herding and/or raiding of animals. Fencing, as you may already know, was derived in Europe directly from the art of hand-to-combat using swords.

The combination of personal combat and ritual practiceperhaps manifests itself greatest in martial arts (a category under whichfencing falls). Whether for combative,competitive, educational, resilience, or health-related purposes, innumerablevarieties of martial arts have developed around the world: some dating backthousands of years; some being very recent creations. Almost all of these arts are associated witha particular country or region. Think ofthe mainstream and semi-mainstream martial arts you know, and you can almostimmediately associatethem with a specific country. Karateand sumo? Japan. Collegiate wrestling? The United States. Taekwondo? Korea. Sambo? Russia. Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Well, thatone’s pretty self-explanatory. The listcould go on endlessly, but in this article, we’ll bypass the more mainstreamschools of martial arts (by worldwide standards, anyway) and take a short glanceat eight styles from around the world the layperson on the street may not haveheard of.

Iron shirt (China)

Based almost completely in meditation and yet stunninglybrutal in demonstration, iron shirt (also known as ‘iron jacket’ or ‘steeljacket’) operates on the belief that one can train his/her body to withstandhigh-impact blows and develop a tolerance to the extreme pain these blowscause. Supposedly developed from theteaching of 12^th century Chinese military trainer Zhou Tong,iron shirt practitioners employ frozen stances (zhan zhuang)and breathing techniques that attempt to focus energies (chi or qi) into specific parts of the body. The goal is turn one’s external body into theeponymous iron shirt, able to withstand blows as seen in the video below.

Shin-kicking/Cornish wrestling(Cornwall)

Over the centuries, England has developed a number ofmartial art styles rooted in wrestling and grappling, catch perhaps being themost famous. Cornwall, in southwestEngland, is home to a pair of grappling variants that maintain healthy cultfollowings. After all, who wouldn’tenjoy a good round of shin-kicking? Yes,shin-kicking. Also known as purring, thesport dates back to the original Cotswold Olimpick Games in 1612, where itremains the mainattraction of the revived Olimpicks each year (the competitions at theOlympicks double as the world championships). The rules are simple: two players, grappling each other by their jackets’shoulders, attempt to kick out their opponent’s legs from under them usingnothing but kicks to the shin and leg sweeps (these days, grapplers wear paddedpantlegs for obvious reasons).

The other jacketed Cornish grappling style is Cornishwrestling. In a way, it’s rathersimilar to judo, in that the primary forms of offence are throws and swings alltaken upon the opponent’s jacket, with the idea being to throw the opponent to theground onto his back or shoulder. Each contactof ground with a shoulder or the point of the back just above a buttock is worthone point; four points ends the match (a throw that ends with an opponent flaton his back would end the match since all four points would be touching theground). Although the practice of thisstyle of wrestling dates back perhaps a millennium, the rules were not finallystandardised until 1923.

Bataireacht (Ireland)

Bataireacht (literally translating to ‘stick fighting’ inIrish) is an Irish stick fighting art that employs the traditional club knownas the Sail-Éille or shillelagh. The term can be seen as a catch-all forvarious forms of Irish stick fighting, personified by the various fightingtechniques specific to certain families, gangs, or factions in theimmediate pre-famineera. The various forms that have beenpreserved and refined in the modern day exist not just in Ireland but acrossthe Irish diaspora, particularly in Canada via the Doyle family which arrived in Newfoundland inthe early 19^th century. The current version of the Doyle family style has adapted moves fromother martial arts and focuses on a two-handed style.

Okichitaw (Canada)

Speaking of Canada, a recently codified martial art withvery ancient roots has arisen in the past couple of decades called Okichitaw. Developed over a number of years by George Lépine outof ancientCree fighting techniques, weaponry training, and indigenous spiritual teachingsand informed by modern martial art forms, the aggressive style employs gunstock warclubs,knives, and tomahawks.

Nguni stick fighting(Southern Africa)

Initiallyused as training for warfare centuries ago, stick fighting insouthern Africa traditionally involves very long sticks in one hand foroffence and short clubs in the other for defence. Some variants also allow for shields to beemployed. Fighters traditionally ingestedritual medicines before battling which were also applied to the sticksthemselves. While largely limited to rural areas during the 20^thcentury, stick fighting is experiencing a resurgence in urban areas as a more technical fightsport with judges and prize money.

Mau Rākau (NewZealand)

Also employing traditional weapons is mau rākau, which isbased upon the use of variousdifferent Maori weapons. Below is ademonstration using the main weapon of the art, a flat-headed staff known asthe taiaha:

Capoeira (Brazil)

One of the most acrobatic martial arts is capoeira, whichcombines a game of combat with dance and music (the speed and rhythm of themusic dictate the pace of the game). Capoeira was originallya fighting style developed by escaped slaves to protect themselves fromarmed colonial agents by using very unorthodox moves and trickery while stayingin constant motion. Banned in Brazil between 1890 and 1940 following the end ofslavery in the country (it survived underground in poor neighbourhoods),capoeira today holds a vaunted place in the Brazilian national identity, and isbeginning to cross over into other countries thanks to exposure from successfulmixed martial artists such as Anderson Silva. At first, it may seem like a capoeira game isa dancing competition more than a fight. Well-versed capoeiristas cancome amazingly close to each other at high speeds performing very intricatemoves without ever touching each other.

While it all looks very pretty, a blow which makes contactcan mean lights-out rather instantly, as seen in this recent mixed martial artsfight in Brazil courtesy of fighter Cairo Rocha:

Further Reading

Coetzee, M-H. (2002). Zulu Stick Fighting: A Socio-Historical Overview. InYo:The Journal of Alternative Perspectives on the Martial Arts and Sciences 2002(9). Available at http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_Coetzee_0902.htm. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Davis, A. (2010). Xhosa Kung Fu. Mahala, 2 December 2010. Available at http://www.mahala.co.za/culture/xhosa-kung-fu/. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Hurley, J.W. (2003). Bataireacht:The Art of Irish Stick-Fighting. The Wild Geese Today. Available at http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/facfight.html. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Leighton, N. (2005). Old sport alive and kicking. BBC News, 3 June 2005. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/4605157.stm. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Lépine, G. (2012). Okichitaw Indigienous Martial Arts. Availableat http://www.nativemartialarts.com/. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Mint Museum of Art (2001). The Sport of Life and Death: TheMesoamerican Ballgame. Available at http://www.ballgame.org/main.asp?section=5. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Roberts, C. (2000). About Cornish Wrestling. Journal of Western Martial Art 2000(4). Available at http://ejmas.com/jwma/articles/2000/jwmaart_roberts_0400.htm. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Taborn, K. (2000). History & Ethnomusicology. CapoeiraNew York, 22 March 2000. Availableat http://www.capoeiranyc.com/study.html. Accessed 18 January 2012.

World Martial Arts Union (2011). Oki Chi Taw. 27 July 2011. Available at http://www.womau.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=b2x1&wr_id=21&sca=%EC%95%84%EB%A9%94%EB%A6%AC%EC%B9%B4&lag=en. Accessed 18 January 2012.

Soviet Socialist Republics That Didn’t Survive

2012-01-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

We have now passed the 20-year mark since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The end of the USSR gave the world fifteen different countries, each based upon one of the Union’s constituent republics (Soviet Socialist Republics, or SSRs, though the largest republic was called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which itself implied a federation of smaller republics; the name carries on in a way through modern-day Russia’s official name, the Russian Federation). Most of these republics were not present at the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922; in fact, there were just four republics at the time which united to form the Union (the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, and the Russian SFSR). Between 1924 and 1940, various other SSRs were created, each at least nominally representing a different ethnicity within the Soviet Union. Constitutionally, they were all equals (the Ukrainian and ByelorussianSSRs even held seats at the United Nations), but in practice all were centrally controlled, and the Soviet government created and dissolved the republics as deemed necessary (it was only once political restrictions in the country were lifted under Mikhail Gorbachev that the Baltic republics were able to leave the Union in the summer of 1991, soon followed by the others). From 1956 through 1991, the 15 republics most people are familiar with remained basically intact, but there were five SSRs that never made it longer than 16 years of existence.

Transcaucasian Socialist Federative SovietRepublic (1922-1936)

The TranscaucasianSFSR, 1928. The SSR of Abkhazia is in the northwestern corner on the Black Sea.

As mentioned above, the Transcaucasian SFSR was one of thefour founding republics of the Soviet Union. In the wake of the October Revolution,Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan had managed to break away from Russia, only tobe pulled back in by the Red Army by 1921. Initially three separate republics, the three states were combined intoone, the FederativeUnion of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia, in March 1922 withthe Georgian capital of Tbilisi serving as the capital of the new republic, andthe three states serving as autonomous republics (ASSRs) within it. The republic would join the Soviet Union atits formation in December of 1922, only to be divided amongst new Georgian,Armenian, and Azerbaijani SSRs in 1936 at the end of Stalin’s policy of korenizatsiya (indigenisation) inwhich dozensof nominally ethnic political units were created across the USSR in aneffort to promote harmony amongst the many different ethnic groups of thecountry (Stalin soon reversed this policy and, in a complete 180-degree turn,was ruthlessly enforcing processes of Russification by 1937).

Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia (1921-1931)

Heavily tied into the Transcaucasian SFSR was the SocialistSoviet Republic of Abkhazia. WhenGeorgia briefly gained its independence in 1918 in the wake of the revolution,Abkhazia was included with it as an autonomous province, but the new governmenthad difficulty effectively controlling the region. When the Georgian Menshevikswere ousted by the Red Army in 1921, Abkhazia was set aside as a separate SSRunder a treaty of specialalliance with the Georgian SSR, nominallyseparate but subordinate in some areas (technically, its status was that ofa ‘contractual republic’, something in between an SSR and an ASSR). When the Transcaucasian SFSR was formed, theSSR of Abkhazia was consideredboth a member of it and of the USSR as a whole. This relationship was downgraded in 1931,when the SSR of Abkhazia was made an ASSR within Georgia as punishment forsupposed resistance to collectivisation. The boundaries of the current entity of Abkhazia are congruent withthe old ASSR.

Khorezm Soviet Socialist Republic (1923-1925)

The boundaries of theold Khanate of Khiva, the predecessor to the Khorezm SSR, are shown here southof the Aral Sea in this 1903 map. TheEmirate of Bukhara lies directly to the southeast.

South of the AralSea in what is now western Uzbekistan and north-central Turkmenistan on thesouthwest shore of the Amu Darya lay the Khanateof Khiva, an Uzbek state that became a Russian protectorate in 1873 afterdecades of Russian incursion that progressively shrunk the size of thestate. After the October Revolution, theBolshevik/anti-imperialism movement soon spread to Khiva, with the khan finallyforced to abdicate in April 1920, removing himself to Afghanistan. The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic wasdeclared, and it was this entity that acceded to the USSR as the Khorezm SSR in1923. The SSR didn’t last very long atall; in February 1925 it was divided between the newly-formed Uzbek and TurkmenSSRs and the new Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast, whichwas later joined to the Uzbek ASSR in 1936.

Bukharan Soviet Socialist Republic (1924-1925)

The locations of theKhorezm and Bukharan SSRs between 1920 and 1925. Note at this time that the surrounding Kirgizistan and Turkistan republics are only at the status of autonomous SSRs(also of note is that ‘Kirgizstan’ on this map is equivalent to modern-dayKazakhstan rather than modern-day Kyrgyzstan, onlySource: Seb az86556, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SovietCentralAsia1922.svg. Licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Khiva and Bukhara shared rather similar histories underRussian rule. The Bukharan emirate(constituting the bulk of modern Uzbekistan, a fair portion, of Tajikistan andpieces of Turkmenistan) was made a protectorate of Russia in 1868. It, too, saw its monarchy removed in 1920 (inthis case, the emir’s hand was forced when the Red Army captured the city ofBukhara itself), but waited an extra year to join the Soviet Union. The Bukharan SSR only lasted from September1924 to February 1925, at which point the government voted itself out ofexistence in favour of merging into the new Uzbek SSR.

Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (1940-1956)

A map of theKarelo-Finnish SSR at its foundation in 1940. The portion of the Karelian Isthmusbelonging to the republic would be transferred to Leningrad Oblast of theRussian SFSR in 1944 after the Moscow Armistice between Finland, the USSR, and the United Kingdom.

Well after the creations of the other SSRs mentioned herecame the creation of the Karelo-Finnish SSR in 1940 as part of theincorporation of territories captured by the Soviet Union during the openingstages of WWII (the three Baltic SSRs and the Moldavian SSR also came aboutthis way). The territories of theshort-lived FinnishDemocratic Republic puppet state were combined with territories newly wonfrom Finland plus the existing KarelianASSR to form the new SSR. Unlike the other SSRs that entered the Unionduring this time, the Karelo-Finnish SSR contained a rather smaller percentageof its titular nationality’s population, for pretty well the entire populationof Finnish Karelians (around415 000 of 420 000) chose to be evacuated toFinland under the terms of the Moscow Peace Treaty which ended the Winter War between Finlandand the USSR. Some considered theformation of this particular SSR apreparation for the potential absorption of all of Finland into the SovietUnion, or at the very least political posturing. After Finno-Soviet relations improved in the1950s, and with only a few thousand Finns left in the SSR, which had beenresettled by hundreds of thousands of Russians, the decision was made in 1956to merge the republic back into the RSFSR.

Further Reading

(n.a.) (1925). Constitution of the Socialist Soviet Republicof Abkhazia. Available at http://abkhazia.narod.ru/constitution1.htm. Accessed 17 January 2012.

Kliot, N. (2007). Resettlement of Refugees in Finland and Cyprus. In A.M. Kacowicz and P. Lutomski, eds., Population Resettlement in InternationalConflicts: A comparative study, 57-78. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Taagepera, R. (1999). The Finno-Ugric Republics and theRussian State. New York: Routledge.

Virtala, I. (2004). Finnish War Children in Literature. Tystnadentalar, Web Reports No. 5. Turku:Migrationsinstitutet. Available at http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/art/eng/webreports5_e.htm. Accessed 17 January 2012.

The Other Gaza

2012-01-16T00:04:00.000-08:00

Last month, beleaguered Gaza was back in the news again. With hundreds of thousands ofpeople in a situation of dire food security across the country, the Mozambican government encouraged farmers in Gaza to adopt new agricultural technologies introduced by the Chinese, touting a new irrigationproject along the Limpopo River as a way to introduce students in Gaza’s agricultural schools to Chinese rice growing techniques.

If you’re wondering from that opening paragraph what Mozambique and the LimpopoRiver have to do with Gaza, you’re thinking of the wrong Gaza. The Gaza in question here lies about 5 875 km(3 650 mi) to the south:

Source: A. Kuehne, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mo%C3%A7ambique_Gaza.gif. Licensedunder the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

The second-southernmost province of Mozambique, Gaza is roughly the samesize as Panama or the Czech Republic but with a population of only around 1.3millon (1 236 384, according to the 2007census). Its capital is Xai-Xai, a city of 120 000 onthe Indian Ocean coast at the mouth of the Limpopo River, which bisects theprovince. Thanks to the naturalirrigation of the Limpopo, Gaza is the largest agricultural producer in thecountry, with its main crops being cereal, rice,cashews, and maize. Cotton is also grownin large amounts here.

A drive through Gaza,ending in Xai-Xai.

The name ‘Gaza’ for the region has not been around nearly aslong as its Middle Eastern counterpart. The African version takes its name from a Swazi chief named Gaza who wasan early contemporary of the great early 19^th century Zulu monarch Shaka. Gaza’s grandson, Soshangane,rose to power in the region in the 1830s and named his new empire after hisgrandfather. Soshangane ruled until hisdeath circa 1856 from a capital inwhat is now eastern Zimbabwe. UponSoshangane’s death, his son Mzila allied himself with the nearby Portuguese on the coastand with their support took the throne, in the process moving the capital ofthe Gaza Empire into modern-day Mozambique. After Mzila died in 1884, his successor Gungunyanawas unable to maintain stability in the empire. Encroached upon by the Portuguese in their effort to claim the territoryapportioned to them at the 1884 BerlinConference, beset by attacks from warlords, Gungunyana lost his empire in1895 and was capturedand exiled. Gaza came fully underPortuguese control, but the names ‘Gaza’ and ‘Gazaland’ remained in colloquialusage. The modern province of Gaza wascreated in 1954.

As aforementioned, food security is a major issue inMozambique, with overone-third of the population being chronically malnourished according to thecountry’s own government. With Gaza’sLimpopo valley being the leading centre of food production in the country, muchof the effort toward rectifying this crisis will first take place in Gaza. As part of this process, the Mozambicangovernment has twinned Gaza with the Chinese province of Hubei, hoping that theexperimental farms being developed there with Chinese input will kickstartan acceleration of food production across the rest of the country; antiquatedfarming methods and increasingly erratic weather patterns have leftmuch of the region’s fields barren. Thenew methods of rice planting haveincreased yields from 3 to 10 tonnes per hectare.

Despite this new influx of outside money and knowledge,Gaza, like the rest of Mozambique, remains desperately poor, and the very sameLimpopo that provide much of the province’s livelihood also brings itcrisis. At this time last year, floodsin the Limpopo basin displaced an estimated 30 000 people and caused many people to move into‘resettlement camps’, semi-permanent installations on higher ground thegovernment hopes to eventually convert into long-term settlements in order tolessen the number of people living in flood-prone areas. These tent cities are dependent onorganisations such as UNICEF, the Red Cross, and foreign NGOs for providingmuch of their infrastructure and supplies. In addition to constructing resettlement camps, the Mozambicangovernment has also implementeda flood warning system in Gaza’s Massingir district, with plans to expandthe system gradually along the Limpopo.

Further Reading

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (2011). Mozambique: 240,000 At Risk of Hunger. AllAfrica.com,20 December 2011. Available at http://allafrica.com/stories/201112210130.html.Accessed 11 January 2012.

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (2011). Mozambique: Chinese Technology to IncreaseRice Yields. AllAfrica.com, 27 December 2011. Available at http://allafrica.com/stories/201112272506.html. Accessed 11 January 2012.

Escobar, E. (2011). Full speed ahead. Macao 9:4-22. Available at http://www.macaomagazine.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174:full-speed-ahead&catid=44:issue-9. Accessed 12 January 2012.

Niassa Tourism (n.d.). Gaza province, Mozambique. Available at http://www.niassatourism.com/gaza-province-80.html. Accessed 12 January 2012.

UN Children’s Fund (2011). Mozambique: Living with Floods in Gaza Province. ReliefWeb,7 March 2011. Available at http://www.reliefweb.int/node/390975. Accessed 12 January 2012.

Zvomuya, F. (2011). Irrigation helps Mozambican farmers survive unreliable rains. Alertnet,21 November 2011. Available at http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/irrigation-helps-mozambican-farmers-survive-unreliable-rains. Accessed 12 January 2012.

A Geography of Robert W. Service

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 138^th birthday of the author of the most commercially successful body of poetry of the entire 20^thcentury. Robert W. Service washardly innovative; he was far from academically renowned like other early 20^th century English-language poets such as William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, or William Carlos Williams; nor did he achieve the local hero status of another Ayrshire poet from a century prior, Robert Burns. Service wrote rather populist verse (many would simply say ‘doggerel’) in the same way Norman Rockwell made populist paintings; light fare meant to be consumed rather than analysed. While his work remains little known in his Scottish homeland, Service’s tales of frontier adventure (quite similar to, if not derivative of, Rudyard Kipling and, if anything, a precursor to the modern-day cowboy poetry movement) are extremely well-known in North America (especially Canada), and Service’s name is nearly synonymous with the Yukon. Service had a rather intimate relationship with geography that not only kept himglobetrotting around the world for the entirety of his adult life, but reflected itself in his verse.

From his birth in 1874, Robert William Service was atraveller: Scottish by ethnicity, he was actually born in Preston, Lancashire, where his banker fatherhad been transferred. At five, Servicewas sent to live with relatives in the family’s hometown of Kilwinning,North Ayrshire. Later, he rejoined his father, now inGlasgow, where he took up the family trade and joined theCommercial Bank of Scotland (today’s Royal Bank of Scotland) at 15.

The plaque in Preston,Lancashire commemorating Service’s birthplace. Source: Beejaypii, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RobertWService-plaque-Preston.jpg.

This memorial to Servicelies along the A737 in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire. Source: R. Griffith, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Service%27s_memorial,_Kilwinning.JPG.

Bored of the work of banking, he grew listless and movedabroad to North America in 1896 with aspirations of being a cowboy or ranchhand. After drifting along the westcoast for a couple of years working all sorts of odd jobs, he ended up in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia. It was here where he first began activelysubmitting the verses he had been writing as a hobby to be published (in thiscase by the Victoria Daily Colonist);his first published tome being ‘The March of theDead’ about the ongoing Boer War and mentioning places such as Colenso,Magersfontein,and Spion Kop.

The Battle of Spion Kop nearLadysmith on 23-24 January 1900 resulted in nearly 600 deaths between theBritish and South African troops.

In need of money, Service returned to the banking game withthe Canadian Imperial Bank (today’s CIBC). After a couple transfers around British Columbia, the adventurousService secured a transfer to Whitehorse, Yukon in1904, where he would begin writing and selling his most famous poems and becomea local hero in the process. His love ofthe frontier lifestyle meant that he immediately became enraptured with talesof the Klondike Gold Rush that had just ended earlierthat decade to the north in and around Dawson City. In Whitehorse, Service began reciting otherauthors’ works in public, and also began publishing poems of his own in the Whitehorse Star, many of which had beenwritten before his arrival in the Yukon). When the editor asked for morelocal-flavoured content, Service responded with the first of his classicpoems, 'The Shooting ofDan McGrew', about a shootout in a Yukon saloon. Soon came Service’s most famous poem, ‘The Cremation of SamMcGee’, the tale of a miner from Tennessee who freezes to death in theYukon cold and is cremated by an acquaintance along the shore of Lake Leberge, a wideningof the Yukon River just to the north of Whitehorse. The name ‘Sam McGee’ was an actual personService dealt with at the Canadian Imperial Bank in Whitehorse, but lived along life into the 1940s.

‘It was out on themarge of Lake Lebarge [sic] I cremated Sam McGee’. Source: P. Jerry, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_LeBarge_with_ice.jpg. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0Generic licence.

After collecting abook’s worth of poems, he sent a manuscript to his father, now in Toronto,with the intention of having copies printed up to give to friends. Instead, the publishing house his father wentto with the book saw its moneymaking potential, and signed Service to a royaltycontract. Songsof a Sourdough was an instant sensation in 1907 (theera of ‘manly men’ such as Teddy Roosevelt’s and his rough riders), and in arather short amount of time Service went from barely scraping by to being extremelywealthy. In 1908, Service finally madeit to Dawson City after another bank transfer. In 1898 at the height of the gold rush, Dawson had been a bustling goldcity of 40 000 residents; by 1899, it was down to 8 000; by the time ofService’s arrival, it was well under 5 000. While the glitz may have left the city, Service was still able to pickthe brains of many a prospector who had been there during the rush, and usedthese stories as the basis for a series of Yukon-based poems (and two novels)that would come one right after the other, all bestsellers: Ballads of a Cheechako, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man.

Robert W. Service circa 1905.

The itch to travel(and having the means to pay for it; by this point he was a alreadymillionaire, which was quite an accomplishment for 1912) meant Service leftboth banking and the Yukon behind for good in 1912. He was a war correspondent for the TorontoStar during the Balkan Wars before settling in Paris’ Latin Quarter in 1913. While quite possibly the wealthiest author inthe entire city (and considering the Parisian literary scene of the time, thinkabout what that entails), Service was just as likely to roam the streets indisguise looking for literary inspiration from the city’s everymen as he was toappear at high-end functions. His thirstfor adventure still unquenched, he signed up for the British army at thebeginning of World War I but was turned down due to his varicose veins. Instead, he briefly returned to his war correspondentposition before becoming an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross. All of these experiences wereadapted into his 1921 collection BalladsOf A Bohemian, another book filled with geographic references inn poemssuch as ‘TheMan From Athabaska’ (a reference to his own epic 1912 overland journeyfrom central Alberta back to Dawson) and ‘TipperaryDays’ in addition to the plethora of WWI battlefields mentioned throughout. Around this time, he also began writingthriller novels with strong geographic connections such as A Romance of Monte Carlo(1922) and The Roughneck: A Tale of Tahiti (1923).

Once the 1930s came around, Service increased his globetrottingand slowed down his writing pace; later collections were of odds and ends notpublished in other books. A growinginterest in Marxism led to 1937 and 1938 visits to the Soviet Union (and also resultedin the satirical ‘Balladof Lenin’s Tomb’, for which he was essentially blacklisted in the USSR;others works Service wrote deriding Hitler led to the German army attempting totrack him down at his Breton summer home). Trapped in the Soviet Union when Molotov-RibbentropPact between the USSR and Germany was signed paving the way for World WarII, he escaped to France via Sweden and then relocated his family toCalifornia, where his celebrity status made him a sought-after entertainer forUS troops eager to listento him recite his poems in his light Scottish brogue. He hobnobbed with celebrities and even made acameo in a John Wayne/Marlene Dietrich movie. After the war and anotherstint in Vancouver, Service lived out the rest of his life between Brittanyand Monaco, passingaway in 1958. His wife and daughterhad actually visited his beloved Yukon back in 1946, but Service himselfrefused to go along, preferring to remember Whitehorse and Dawson the way theywere.

Today, there are a number of locations which carry Service’sname, mostly in Canada. The mainthoroughfare leading to downtown Whitehorse was named RobertService Way in 1997, and a residentialstreet in Winnipeg and a housingdevelopment in his hometown of Kilwinning also carry his name. Schools have been named after him not only inDawson but in Anchorage, Alaska and Toronto, Ontario. MountRobert Service lies 70 km (44 mi) to the northeast of Dawson along theremote Dempster Highway. The cabin in which Robert Service livedduring his time in Dawson City between 1909 and 1912 has been preserved byParks Canada as part of the DawsonHistorical Complex National Historic Site, and daily interpretative toursof the cabin are held each afternoon (among other notable writers who lived inDawson, both Jack London’scabin down the block and PierreBerton’s childhood home across the street are preserved by Parks Canada asan interpretative centre and the Klondike Visitors Association as a writer’sretreat, respectively).

The Robert Service Cabin in Dawson City.

Further Reading

(n.a.) (2011). RobertWService.com. Available at http://www.robertwservice.com/. Accessed 15 January 2012.

Electric Scotland (2011). Poetry: Robert W. Service. Available at http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/robert_service.htm. Accessed 15 January 2012.

Smulders, S. (2005). “A Man in a World of Men”:
The Rough, the Tough, and the Tender in Robert W. Service’s Songs of aSourdough. Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne30(1): 34-57. Available at http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/viewArticle/15270/16348. Accessed 15 January 2012.

Whitehorse Star (2008). 1905 R.W. Service: Bard of the Yukon. 11 September 2008. Available at http://whitehorsestar.com/archive/print/25045/. Accessed 15 January 2012.

Brothers Without Arms: The Fifteen Countries Which Have No Military Forces

2012-01-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

In the vast majority of countries, the idea of a standing military would be taken for granted. Even countries such as Japan, Haiti, and Iceland, where standing armies have been either disbanded or prohibited by law, still maintain organisations such as foreign peacekeeping forces and coast guard units (and in Japan’s case, Self-Defense Forces). Fifteen countries, however, have no standing military whatsoever with nothing so more than a national police/paramilitary force at best. The reasons for this are varied – economic reasons, colonial legacies, popular sentiment, past issues with violence, or just an outright lack of need – as we shall see in thisentry.

By far, the largest country on Earth with no armed forces interms of population is Costa Rica (and at 4.3 million people, that gives you anidea of the size of countries which possess no military). Costa Rica has long managed to avoid theviolence the rest of Central America has experienced over the past 120 years,with only two very short stretches of instability since 1889. The last such conflict was the 1948 civil war,in which war erupted in the wake of the legislature annulling the results of apresidential election that would have handed power to the opposition. After 44 days of fighting and 2 000 deaths,the rebel army led by José Figueres defeated the government and theCosta Rican army. Figueres and hisjunta, determined to avoid a repeat of such a scenario, quickly instituted anumber of reforms including enfranchising minorities and women and eliminatingthe military. Not only did Figueresbelieve the money spent on the military couldbe better spent on education and civil police, he also placed faithin the newly-established Organization of American States and its charge withthe enforcement of the 1947 Inter-AmericanTreaty of Reciprocal Assistance to provide Costa Rica with security (thecentral crux of the treaty signed by 22 countries of the Americas is that anattack against one is considered an attack against all). To symbolise the end of the military,Figueres ceremoniallydemolished a wall of the former army headquarters. While the treaty has long since fallen by thewayside in enforcement (though technically still legal), Costa Rica hasmaintained peace ever since. Figueresand his junta peacefully handed over power to the new civilian government ayear-and-a-half later as promised, and in the decades afterward Costa Rica hascultivated a healthy democratic tradition. Both the Inter-American Court of HumanRights and the United Nations University for Peaceare based in Costa Rica.

Jose Figueressymbolically smashing a brick in the wall of the Cuartel Bellavista on 1 December 1948.

In addition to Costa Rica, three other countries borderingthe Caribbean Sea have no military: Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and theGrenadines, and Grenada. All threecountries are part of the Regional SecuritySystem (RSS), an organisation of various eastern Caribbean countriesformed in 1982 in the wake of the 1979 Grenada revolution which saw theruling government of the newly-independent deposed by the self-described‘Marxist-Leninist vanguard’ New Jewel Movement. Fearing of the possibility of revolutionarymovement in their own lands and no longer under the safeguard of British rule,the other newly-independent countries of the region (Saint Lucia, SaintVincent, Barbados, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda) created the RSS as acooperative security agreement, recognising the fact that the populations ofeach individual country were unlikely to provide for effect militariesalone. The RSS guarantees ‘mutualassistance on request’ in the case of uprisings or natural disasters. While the RSS had tacit approval from Grenada(still a nominal ally), the 1983 internal struggle that led to the killing ofGrenadian Maurice Bishop and the declaration of military ruleprompted both the RSS nations and the armies of the United States and Jamaicato band together to invade Grenada and remove the military government. After a short and decisive victory for thecoalition forces, the newly-installed US-backed government disbanded themilitary and joined the RSS in 1985 (Saint Kitts and Nevis had also joined theRSS in the interim). While the othermembers of the RSS at least employ coast guards or infantry units, Saint Lucia,Saint Vincent, and Grenada have nothing beyond nationalpolice forces with special paramilitary units. The RSS maintains close links with both theUnited States and Canada.

While US protection of RSS member states is merely implied,it’s required by law in Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated Statesof Micronesia. All three countries werepart of the Trust Territory of the PacificIslands governed by the UnitedStates from 1947 to 1986 (1994 in the case of Palau). Upon independence, the three countriesacceded to the Compact of FreeAssociation with the United States. Dependent upon US financial assistance to provide large amounts of theirbudgets, under the Compact the three Pacific island states in return give upfull international defence authority to the United States. The US has the right to demand land formilitary bases and operations (although there are restrictions on chemical,biological, and nuclear weapons), and the obligation to protect the threecountries and negotiate defence treaties on their behalf. The continued presence of the US military inMicronesia plus hopes for employment and financial security in the job-scarcecountry hasled to rather high recruitment rates for the US military there; higher thanany US state, in fact (and with a casualty rate among the general populationfive times higher to prove it).

The mission controlcentre for the US Army’s 1 900 000 km²(750 000 sq mi) Reagan Test Site is based on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Elsewhere in the Pacific, Nauru, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati,and Solomon Islands have all operated without standing militaries sinceindependence. For the first fourcountries mentioned, all of which have very small populations, various defencearrangements have been arranged with regional allies Australia and NewZealand. Samoa has had a friendship treatywith New Zealand since independence in 1962 which calls for New Zealand toprovide military assistance if necessary and Nauru has a similar informalarrangement with Australia. Tuvalu’spolice force has a single Pacific-class patrol boat provided by Australiafor use in maritime and fisheries surveillance. BothAustralia and New Zealand provide defence assistance to Kiribati. Solomon Islands, however, formerly reliedupon paramilitary elements of its national police force for defence. Its inability to quell internal conflicts wasexposed by the 1998-2003civil war that forced the governor-general to request outside assistance; a peacekeeping force comprisedof troops from various Pacific countries led by Australia and New Zealandarrived in 2003 and remains there to this day. The paramilitary wing of the Solomons’ policeforce was abandoned, and an international police force with members from 15countries patrols the country alongside the Solomon police and theinternational peacekeepers.

Finally we come to two European microstates without militaryforces: Liechtenstein and Vatican City. For Liechtenstein, abolishing the military was simply a function ofcost. It last fielded an army (whichnever saw combat) during the Austro-Prussian Warof 1866, in which the principality was obligated to do so as a member of theGerman Confederation. As one of theresults of the war was the dissolution of the Confederation, this freedLiechtenstein from the obligation, and the country was quick to withdrawfunding for any sort of military. Liechtenstein has retained a policy of neutrality ever since. Vatican City, meanwhile, makes this list onsomewhat of a technicality: the Pontifical Swiss Guard,which is responsible for the defence of the ApostolicPalace and the personal safety of the Pope, is an arm of the Holy See(i.e. theDiocese of Rome, which is the de facto rulingbody of the Catholic Church) rather than of the Vatican government itself.

The Pontifical SwissGuard inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Source: A. Luccaroni, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Group_of_swiss_guards_inside_saint_peter_dome.jpg. Licensedunder the CreativeCommons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

Further Reading

Azios, T. (2010). Uncle Sam wants Micronesians for US military. ChristianScience Monitor, 5 May 2010. Available at http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0505/Uncle-Sam-wants-Micronesians-for-US-military. Accessed 8 January 2012.

BBC News (2011). Solomon Islands country profile. 14 December 2011. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1249307.stm. Accessed 8 January 2012.

El Espiritu del 48 (n.d.). Abolición del Ejército. Availableat http://www.elespiritudel48.org/docu/h013.htm. Accessed 8 January 2012.

Grant, A. (2010). Top10 Countries Without Military Forces. TopTenz,20 May 2010. Available at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-countries-without-military-forces.php. Accessed 8 January 2012.

Haven, J. (n.d.). HowCosta Rica Lost Its Military. Availableat http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/45020.html. Accessed 8 January 2012.

Lewis, P. (2002). ForeignPolicy, Security, and Functional Cooperation. In Surviving Small Size: regionalintegration in Caribbean ministates, 63-81. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press.

World Health Organization (2011). Tuvalu. Country Health InformationProfiles, 438-442. Available at http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/F45D631A-838E-4052-B786-676C291FB7C5/0/34TUVpro2011_finaldraft.pdf. Accessed 8 January 2012.