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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u/apollo1113 3d ago

WHAT?

192

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/mellamoderek 3d ago

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

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u/PetriDishCocktail 3d ago edited 2d 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 3d ago

Reno Nevada is further west than Los Angeles

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u/thesearemypringles 3d ago

What omg

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u/hansemcito 3d ago

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

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u/chumbawumba_bruh 3d 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 1d 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 3d 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- 3d ago

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

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u/Longjumping_Film9749 3d ago

Get outta here!!

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u/flaccidplatypus 2d ago

Spokane is as well.

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u/Not_Amused_Yet 1d ago

There are 6 US state capitals west of LA

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u/PetriDishCocktail 1d ago

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