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Curzon
Author

Curzon

Date

October 7th, 2009

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Geography Trivia

Sent in by a trusted reader:

  • 90% of the world’s ice covers Antarctica. This ice represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world.
  • Siberia contains more than 25% of the world’s forests.
  • More than half of the coastline of the United States is in Alaska.
  • Los Angeles full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula—and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.
  • Los Angeles has the largest Iranian population in the world after Tehran.
  • Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world after Warsaw.
  • There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland.
  • There are more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy.
  • There are more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.
  • The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight, so that these straight sections can function as airstrips in times of war or emergency.
  • Rome was the first city to reach a population of 1 million people at around 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent.

Comments to this entry

Catholicgauze
October 7, 2009
10:51 am
Ummm, some need to be fact checked before I believe them. Some I strongly believe are false. Snopes holds that the interstate as airstrip is a myth (http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp), that was Los Angeles' official name but now it is "City of Los Angeles," and there is no Rome on Antarctica.
Curzon
October 7, 2009
2:55 pm
Maybe 'inhabited' continent for Rome then? Thanks as always CG.
Master Cook
October 8, 2009
5:32 pm
New York City has been quickly losing its white ethnic working class population, so I doubt the things about there being more Irish than in Dublin or more Italians than in Rome are true.

Definitely not Rome, most Italian-American New Yorkers have moved to the suburbs and Rome is a pretty big city. Maybe Dublin, simply because Dublin is not really that large. There may be more Irish living in London than in Dublin.

The US census 2005-7 estimate had 3.6 million white people living in New York City (it doesn't track ethnicity). Wikipedia shows the population of Rome at 2.7 million, of Dublin at 0.5 million, and of Tel Aviv at 0.4 million. So all three claims about NYC could, just, techically be true. But there is simply no way three quarters of New York's white population is Italian!
Master Cook
October 8, 2009
5:44 pm
A quick check of other cities listed in Wikipedia shows that the Iranian city of Masad has a population of 2.4 million. The US census bureau estimates the population of Los Angeles at 3.9 million, so for LA to have the second largest Iranian population after Teheran, it would have to be a majority Iranian city. I'm not sure how the Census categorizes the race of Iranians (these determinations are political), but demographically they should be white. The white population of LA is estimated at 1.8 million, less than Masad.

The largest city listed in Poland is Katowice, with 3 million, more than Warsaw. The next largest is Warsaw, then Krakow with 1.2 million. The latest US census bureau estimate for Chicago is 2.8 million, of which 1 million are white. So its pretty certain that Chicago does not have the second largest Polish population in the world (the distinction actually belongs to Warsaw).

I'm suspecting that most of the other claims are BS as well.
Roy Berman
October 9, 2009
11:36 am
I believe NYC actually has the largest Jewish population of any single city in the world, with Tel Aviv being secong place. Supposedly around 10% of NYC's population is still Jewish (down from a high of 25% around mid-20th century), which would be around 800,000 today- still significantly higher than Tel Aviv City, although less than the metropolitan area.

And I don't have a source, but I believe I've read that Chang'an actually reached 1 million before Rome, or perhaps it just maintained that size for longer and grew to a higher total size later on.
Arcane
October 12, 2009
10:59 am
The statement about the interstate being used as a makeshift airstrip is completely bogus. There are very, very few planes that can land on the interstate, and there's no way you can land military aircraft or even small civilian airliners on it safely.