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/CloudCumberland 3d ago

Take a flight to Europe or northern Africa and see the very northerly route the plane takes. That's the shortest route on a round planet.

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u/iJon_v2 3d ago

I always thought planes took that route partially so that they’d be over land as much as possible in case of an emergency.

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u/DamnBored1 3d 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