- A Few Interesting Facts
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- Alaska
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- More than half of the coastline of the entire United
States is in Alaska.
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- Amazon
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- The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% of the world's
oxygen supply. The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic
Ocean that more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river
one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon
river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined
and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States.
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- Antarctica
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- Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not
owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica.
This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the
world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert.
The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches. Although covered
with ice (all but 0.4% of it, i.e.), Antarctica is the driest place on
the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.
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- Brazil
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- Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
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- Canada
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- Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village."
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- Chicago
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- Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population
in the world.
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- Detroit
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- Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation
M-1, named so because it was the first paved road, anywhere.
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- Damascus, Syria
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- Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand
years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously
inhabited city in existence.
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- Istanbul, Turkey
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- Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city in the world located
on two continents.
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- Los Angeles
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- Los Angeles's 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.
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- New York City
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- The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring
jazz musicians of the 1930's who used the slang expression "apple"
for any town or city.
- Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time
-- The Big Apple. There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin,
Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews
in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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- Ohio
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- There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio, every
one is manmade.
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- Pitcairn Island
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- The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in
Polynesia, at just 1.75 sq. miles/4.53 sq. km.
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- Rome
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- The first city to reach a population of 1 million people
was Rome, Italy, in 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
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- Siberia
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- Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.
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- S.M.O.M.
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- The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is
the Sovereign
- Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M.). It is located in
the city of Rome, Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001
has a population of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican. It is a sovereign
entity under international law, just as the Vatican is.
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- Sahara Desert
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- In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt,
which did not
- receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though,
the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross
Island. There has been no rainfall there for two million years.
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- Spain
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- Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
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- St. Paul, Minnesota
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- St. Paul, Minnesota, was originally called Pig's Eye
after a man named Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant who set up the first
business there.
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- Roads
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- Chances that a road is unpaved in the U.S.A.: 1%, in
Canada: 75%.
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- Texas
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- The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas.
It is as deep as 20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide.
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- United States
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- The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile
in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips
in emergencies.
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- Waterfalls
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- The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela
drops 3,212 feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.
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- Comment
4-30-7
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- Hi,
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- I'm just writing by, to say how wonderful I think your
website is and also to give a small rectification concerning the 'news'
item called "A few interesting facts". I do not know where you
have found this;
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- Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village."
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- I come from Montreal and here, most teachers and Indians
(Iroquoians) will tell you that Canada actually means "the land where
the river runs through it" which is a fair representation of the first
land called Canada, which was the Montreal region in the province of Quebec.
At that time, Canada comprised of only the province of Quebec and the Indians
themselves called the lands along the Saint-Lawrence river (fleuve), Canada,
precisely because this river splits the land all the way from Gaspé
to Lac Champlain, hence the expression "the land where the river runs
through it".
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- I may be wrong, I may have been taught wrong too. Maybe,
the rest of Canada learned something different from the people in the Province
of Quebec, mainly because of our particular heritage and the fact that
Canada was first and foremost French and that the French actually took
the name Canada from the natives.
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- I think most educational organizations now have this
meaning for Canada, meaning the Village, like in Wikipedia;
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- --The name Canada comes from a word in the language of
the St. Lawrence Iroquoians <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Iroquoians>
meaning "village" or "settlement."--
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- But if we actually look at the Iroquoians word for the
St-Lawrence itself, Kaniatarowanenneh, we can see a familiarity between
Kaniata and Canada. I don't know why English Canada is imposing this meaning
of the word Canada as "the big village". Might be because of
the French Canadian origins of the use of the name.
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- But I remember very well, in my French classes in grade
school and high school, the teachers taught us that it meant "where
the river runs through it"
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- Thank you for listening (reading),
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- Jonathan Bigras
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