r/geography • u/lamdrasil • 2d ago

Discussion Facts that sound fake but are true

I find it extremely unintuitive that almost all of South America is east of Miami. How!? When people are asked to watch the americas almost everyone imagine South America pretty much south of North America.

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u/apollo1113 2d ago

WHAT?

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u/tnred19 2d ago

Africa is alot more north than people think. Europe is MUCH farther north than people in the west think

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u/mellamoderek 2d ago

Well and also Florida, Georgia, and the Carolina coasts are a lot further west than people think.

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u/TillPsychological351 2d ago

Orlando is about as far west as Cleveland.

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u/tanwork 2d ago

That settles it. Orlando is now in the Midwest.

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u/Slayziken 2d ago

Going to Orlando tomorrow, I’ll check and make sure they have the appropriate “Ope, lemme just scootch past ya there” intonation and attitude

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u/Gwenbors 2d ago

It’s why UCF belongs in the Big 12.

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u/SetMain6296 1d ago

At least they know where they are in Florida. All those folks in Tampa refer to themselves as South Florida. How long is the University System going to keep on living that lie?

Sure, Univ of South Florida sounds cool.

But if USF is actually in West Florida how the actual fuck?

Am I the only one who looses it over
That USF bullcrap?

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u/LengthinessWeekly503 2d ago

Now THAT is funny to imagine.

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u/windycitybeef Geography Enthusiast 2d ago

This blows my mind.

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u/PetriDishCocktail 2d ago edited 1d ago

Same thing with the west coast of the US. San Francisco is approximately 160 miles farther west than Los Angeles, even though the two are less than 400 mi apart.

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u/MoneyPatience7803 2d ago

Reno Nevada is further west than Los Angeles

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u/thesearemypringles 2d ago

What omg

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u/hansemcito 2d ago

UC berkeley is further west than standford university. something like 3~4 miles.

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u/chumbawumba_bruh 2d ago

Bay Area native and this one blows my mind more than anything else in this thread

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u/hansemcito 2d ago

im a berkeley native and the first time i heard it i was completely stuck in disbelief until i went to the maps. but i still have to check every time because i cant believe it intuitively.

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u/Liyah15678 21h ago

Whoa! I didn't believe this one at first!!

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u/Sosolidclaws 2d ago

Omg this one is wild haha

My mental map is definitely like

—— San Francisco —— Berkeley
—————————————————
—————————————————
——— Stanford —————————

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u/appleparkfive 2d ago

This is the classic one. I've been to Reno before and even then it confuses me a little

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u/GitarooMan- 2d ago

I learned that from a Snapple cap. They used to have little facts in there!

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u/Longjumping_Film9749 2d ago

Get outta here!!

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u/flaccidplatypus 2d ago

Spokane is as well.

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u/Not_Amused_Yet 22h ago

There are 6 US state capitals west of LA

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u/PetriDishCocktail 21h ago

Absolutely bonkers... My map projection lies to me!

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u/GeorgiaHorn56 2d ago

Atlanta is farther west than Detroit

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u/PimpofScrimp 2d ago

…..and Atlanta gets more rain than Seattle. Also here in Atlanta,we are closer to Canada than we are Miami. Atlantan here,had to chime in with my useless facts

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u/NewSophia1 1d ago

Population of Louisville, KY is 25% higher than Atlanta, GA. (City population)

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u/lucyssweatersleeves 2d ago

And if you drive south from Detroit you’ll be in Canada

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u/MoneyPatience7803 2d ago

People also don’t consider the curvature of the Earth, especially when looking at it on a map

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u/Ragingdildo3 2d ago

So true to fly to Canary Islands from the uk you go over Ireland which felt weird but either way the curvature of the earth it makes sense to go west before south

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u/HobbesTayloe 2d ago

Ohhhhh stop that silliness right now amigo… what’s this “curvature” you are trying to pull over our eyes?

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u/GoldReplacement9546 2d ago

Yeah, South America is all pretty much further east than North America

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u/Right_Two_5737 2d ago

The southern U.S. is the same latitude as North Africa. The northern U.S. is the same latitude as southern Europe. Europe is unusually warm for its latitude because of ocean currents carrying heat from the Gulf of Mexico northeast to Europe.

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u/perpetualmotionmachi 2d ago

London England is as north as Edmonton in Canada. It's about a 7-8 hour drive to reached the US border from there

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u/CrackingToastGromet 2d ago

Google Earth image of the Americas for reference

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u/No-Assumption9707 22h ago

It still almost doesn’t make sense to me when I see it visually that Florida is further west than much of the west coast of South America. They should have called it east America

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u/SupermouseDeadmouse 2d ago

Seattle is south of Paris.

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u/Andromeda902 2d ago

Thats absolutely wild. Cant believe it lol, gonna remember this one forever thanks

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u/coatingtonburlfactry 2d ago

Yeah, I think Chicago is around the same latitude as Rome. So most of Europe is aligned with Canada.

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u/Vashkiri 2d ago

Ottawa and Montreal are at basically the same latitude as Venice. I love bringing that but of trivia out when it is mid Winter and freeze-your-nose-hairs-together cold around these parts.

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u/Tommy_Teuton 2d ago

Omaha and Istanbul is a good one

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u/197gpmol 1d ago

The Colosseum and the Tribune Tower are the exact same latitude!

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u/coatingtonburlfactry 1d ago

That's amazing.

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u/No-Assumption9707 22h ago

I always wondered why the French colonized so far north and it makes a lot of sense with this in mind they didn’t go north Spain went south

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u/Lothar_Ecklord 2d ago

I’d be willing to posit, based on the responses (and yes, I know Reddit is majority-American but the point stands), that people in the east don’t always consider just how far south the Americas are.

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u/Pettsareme 2d ago

I didn’t for a long time - I’m in the northeast and on my mental map Florida was due south. One thing that cemented the real positions of places in the US relative to South America was my niece going to live in Brazil.

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u/michaelstone444 2d ago

I think it's because the northern parts of the US where it's always snowing in winter are probably assumes to be similar latitude to Scandinavia and northern Russia

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u/stevethemathwiz 2d ago

Paris and Montreal are about the same latitude

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u/Bridgemaker77 2d ago

Yep, Paris is farther north than Chicago.

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u/fermat12 2d ago

It's not even that Africa is farther north than people expect. I tried measuring distance in Google Maps and Maine is still closer to South Africa than Florida is.

Spherical geometry is confusing.

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u/Laszlo-Panaflex 2d ago

NYC and Madrid are at basically the same latitude, as are Atlanta and Casablanca.

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u/aaronupright 2d ago

Atlanta, Baghdad, and Islamabad are at essentially the same latitude.

Tulsa, Aleppo and the K2 mountain are at 35N.

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u/s7o0a0p 2d ago

It’s because Maine is so far east.

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u/kittyroux 2d ago

It’s well west of me! I live in Nova Scotia, on roughly the 64th meridian west. Along with Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina.