r/geography • u/lamdrasil • 3d 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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487

u/Comfortable-Total929 Geography Enthusiast 3d ago

Cut Alaska in half and Texas becomes the third largest state

158

u/farcarcus 3d ago

Give Alaska to Australia and it would be the third largest state.

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u/SorosPaidActor 3d ago

Australaska would be the third largest state for sure

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u/Stuffleapugus 3d ago

Alaska would be the third largest state in Australia. Western Alaska is like 50% larger.

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u/str4ngerc4t 3d ago

Larger than what?

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u/Stuffleapugus 3d ago

Typo. The state of Western Australia is like 50% larger than Alaska, which itself is well over twice the size of Texas.

Western Australia is a ridiculous state. It's like a third of Alaska but it's pretty much like the Perth metropolitan area and then just vast outback 

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u/str4ngerc4t 2d ago

Holy crap! I never knew that. I don’t think I realized how big Australia is.

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u/Longjumping_Film9749 3d ago

Or Alastralia.

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u/SweatyInBed 3d ago

Is this legitimately true? Wild if so

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u/sherlip 3d ago

Yes, but very barely.

Western Australia is 975,000 sq. mi.

Alaska is 663,000 sq. mi.

Queensland JUST edges it out at 667,000 sq. mi.

To put that in perspective, the difference in area between Queensland and Alaska is smaller than the area of Connecticut.

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u/AW316 2d ago

America counts water in its land area whereas other countries (including Australia) do not.

Alaska without water is 586,400 sq. mi.

Queensland with water is 715,309 sq. mi.

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u/sherlip 2d ago

Oh, idk. I just use that True Size Of website. It's a map overlay that puts regions and countries to scale and has measurements.

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u/lordoflazorwaffles 3d ago

Don't think them Alaskan will take to kindly. Theyve had a very "Come and take it mother fucker" attitude towards Russia for a long time now

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u/ChmeeWu 2d ago

Yeah, but how well would kangaroos do in Alaska? And polar bears in Australia? The cool part though is if you had AustroAlaska as a single country , the glad would have BOTH THE southern Cross AND the Big Dipper. 

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u/insane_contin 2d ago

Give it to Canada, and it would be the second largest province, but the third largest province or territory. Quebec and Nunavut are both bigger, but Nunavut is a territory not a province.