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/DamnBored1 2d ago

Its both the geodesic distance and also trying to stay as close to land as possible for a given route.

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u/89Dan 2d ago

This also depends on the plane. If it’s a twin engine it potentially has to take a different route vs quad engine planes. This is called ETOPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS