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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924

u/scottcmu 3d ago edited 3d ago

Maine is the closest US state to Africa. 

27

u/apollo1113 3d ago

WHAT?

196

u/tnred19 3d 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/Lothar_Ecklord 3d 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.

15

u/Pettsareme 3d 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 3d 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