Fun fact#595
Canada holds most of the world's lakes
Canada contains more lake area than the rest of the world put together, with over two million lakes.
506 fun facts, part 4
100 fun facts on this page. It covers Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and 37 other places. Page 4 of 6.
Page 4 of 6
100 fun facts on this page. It covers Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and 37 other places. Page 4 of 6.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Fun fact#596
Newfoundland has its own time zone
Newfoundland runs half an hour ahead of Atlantic time, a 30-minute offset kept since 1935.
Fun fact#599
Churchill is the polar bear capital
Bears gather near Churchill each autumn waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze, and the town leaves cars unlocked as bear shelters.
Fun fact#600
Quebec keeps French alive
Quebec's language laws protect French in commerce and signage, and it is the only province where French is the sole official language.
Fun fact#602
The Rockies have a spiral tunnel
Two figure-eight tunnels were bored into the mountains in 1909 to reduce a dangerously steep railway grade.
Fun fact#604
Canada's national park is bigger than Switzerland
Wood Buffalo National Park covers about 44,800 square kilometres, larger than Switzerland.
Fun fact#606
Alaska is the widest state
Alaska crosses the 180th meridian, making it both the westernmost and easternmost state in the United States.
Fun fact#608
Denali is taller from base to peak than Everest
Measured from its own base, Denali rises higher than Everest does above the Tibetan plateau.
Fun fact#610
Yellowstone sits on a supervolcano
Yellowstone's caldera is roughly 55 by 72 kilometres, and its heat drives more than half the world's geysers.
Fun fact#612
Yellowstone was the first national park
Established in 1872, Yellowstone is generally recognised as the first national park anywhere in the world.
Fun fact#614
The Grand Canyon exposes two billion years
Rock at the canyon floor is nearly two billion years old, roughly half the age of the Earth.
Fun fact#616
Death Valley holds the heat record
A reading of 56.7 degrees Celsius in 1913 remains the highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth.
Fun fact#618
Death Valley's rocks move by themselves
Stones leave long trails across the playa, pushed by thin ice sheets breaking up in light wind.
Fun fact#620
Route 66 no longer officially exists
Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, but much of it survives as Historic Route 66 signed by individual states.
Fun fact#622
New York has more languages than any city
Researchers have identified over 700 languages spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city ever recorded.
Fun fact#624
The Statue of Liberty was a gift and a kit
France gave the statue, which arrived in 350 pieces packed in 214 crates and was assembled on site.
Fun fact#626
Central Park is entirely designed
Every hill, lake and outcrop arrangement in Central Park was landscaped. Almost nothing there is natural.
Fun fact#628
Chicago reversed a river
Engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900 so sewage would drain away from Lake Michigan.
Fun fact#630
San Francisco's fog has a name
Locals call the summer fog Karl, and it has its own devoted social media following.
Fun fact#632
Hawaii is the youngest US state and still growing
Kilauea keeps adding land to the Big Island, and a new seamount is forming offshore for a future island.
Fun fact#634
Hawaii has almost every climate zone
The Big Island contains most of the world's recognised climate zones, from tropical beach to alpine tundra.
Fun fact#636
Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain from base
Measured from the seafloor, Mauna Kea rises over 10,000 metres, taller than Everest above sea level.
Fun fact#638
Louisiana uses parishes
Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes rather than counties, a leftover from its French and Spanish past.
Fun fact#640
New Orleans buries above ground
High groundwater made underground burial impractical, so the city built tombs above ground in walled cemeteries.
Fun fact#642
Alaska was bought for two cents an acre
The United States paid Russia 7.2 million dollars for Alaska in 1867, mocked at the time as Seward's Folly.
Fun fact#644
Mexico City is sinking
Built on a drained lakebed, Mexico City sinks several centimetres a year as groundwater is pumped out.
Fun fact#646
Mexico has 68 recognised languages
Alongside Spanish, Mexico officially recognises 68 indigenous languages with hundreds of variants.
Fun fact#648
Chichen Itza makes a snake of light
At the equinoxes, shadows on the pyramid's staircase form a serpent that appears to slide down to the ground.
Fun fact#650
Cenotes are collapsed cave roofs
Thousands of cenotes dot the Yucatan, formed along a ring of fractures linked to the asteroid impact that ended the dinosaurs.
Fun fact#651
Chocolate began in Mesoamerica
Cacao was drunk bitter and spiced by the Maya and Aztecs long before Europeans added sugar and milk.
Fun fact#654
Monarch butterflies migrate 4,000 km
Monarchs fly from Canada to a few Mexican mountain forests, and no single butterfly completes the round trip.
Fun fact#656
Guatemala has a lake in a caldera
Atitlan fills a caldera left by a colossal eruption 84,000 years ago and is ringed by three volcanoes.
Fun fact#657
Belize has the second largest reef
The Belize Barrier Reef is the largest in the northern hemisphere and includes the famous Great Blue Hole.
Fun fact#660
Honduras has a Maya city in the jungle
Copan's hieroglyphic stairway carries the longest known Maya text, over 2,000 glyphs on 63 steps.
Fun fact#661
El Salvador surfs a long point break
Punta Roca near La Libertad delivers one of Central America's most consistent right-hand point breaks.
Fun fact#664
Nicaragua has an island of two volcanoes
Ometepe sits in a freshwater lake and is formed by two volcanoes joined by a low isthmus.
Fun fact#666
Costa Rica abolished its army
Costa Rica dissolved its military in 1948 and redirected the budget to education and health.
Fun fact#667
Costa Rica runs on renewables
For years Costa Rica has generated close to 99 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly hydro and geothermal.
Fun fact#670
Panama's canal uses fresh water
Every ship transit releases millions of litres of fresh lake water to the sea, which is why droughts slow the canal.
Fun fact#671
Panama sunrise faces the Pacific
Because of the isthmus's S-shape, you can watch the sun rise over the Pacific and set over the Atlantic in Panama.
Fun fact#674
Colombia has two oceans
Colombia is the only South American country with coastlines on both the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Fun fact#675
Colombia grows most of the world's emeralds
Colombian mines have long supplied the majority of the world's fine emeralds, prized for their deep green.
Fun fact#677
Bogota closes streets on Sundays
Ciclovia shuts over 100 kilometres of road to cars every Sunday, and hundreds of thousands of people cycle and skate.
Fun fact#680
Colombia has a river of five colours
An aquatic plant turns Cano Cristales red for a few months a year, mixing with green moss and yellow sand.
Fun fact#681
Venezuela has the tallest waterfall
Angel Falls drops 979 metres, so far that much of the water becomes mist before reaching the bottom.
Fun fact#684
Lightning strikes the same lake nightly
Where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo, storms produce lightning on around 300 nights a year.
Fun fact#685
Guyana has a single-drop giant waterfall
Kaieteur Falls plunges 226 metres in one drop, roughly five times the height of Niagara, with almost no crowds.
Fun fact#687
Suriname speaks Dutch
Suriname is the only South American country with Dutch as its official language, a legacy of colonial rule.
Fun fact#689
Ecuador is named after the equator
Ecuador is the only country named for a line of latitude, and the true equator sits slightly off the famous monument.
Fun fact#691
Chimborazo is closest to space
Because the Earth bulges at the equator, Chimborazo's summit is the furthest point from the planet's centre.
Fun fact#693
Galapagos finches shaped a theory
Darwin's finches, each with a beak suited to different food, helped shape the theory of natural selection.
Fun fact#695
Quito is the closest capital to the equator
Quito sits almost exactly on the equator at 2,850 metres, giving it spring-like weather all year.
Fun fact#697
Peru grows thousands of potato varieties
Peru cultivates over 3,000 potato varieties, and the potato was domesticated in the Andes around 8,000 years ago.
Fun fact#699
Machu Picchu was never found by Spain
The Spanish never located Machu Picchu, which is why its stonework and terraces survived largely intact.
Fun fact#701
Inca walls survive earthquakes
Inca masonry fits without mortar and is designed to shift and resettle during earthquakes rather than crack.
Fun fact#703
The Nazca lines are best seen from the air
Some Nazca figures stretch 370 metres and were only fully appreciated once aircraft flew over the desert.
Fun fact#705
Rainbow Mountain was under ice
The striped mineral colours of Vinicunca were revealed only recently as the glacier covering it retreated.
Fun fact#707
Bolivia has two capitals
Sucre is the constitutional capital while La Paz holds the government, making La Paz the highest seat of government on Earth.
Fun fact#709
Salar de Uyuni becomes a mirror
When a thin layer of water covers the salt flat, it reflects the sky so precisely the horizon disappears.
Fun fact#711
Bolivia holds huge lithium reserves
Beneath the Uyuni salt flat lies one of the largest lithium deposits on the planet.
Fun fact#713
Lake Titicaca has floating islands
The Uros build and maintain islands from layered totora reeds, adding fresh reeds every few weeks.
Fun fact#715
Chile is over 4,300 km long
Chile stretches from desert to glacier over 4,300 kilometres but averages only about 180 kilometres wide.
Fun fact#717
Atacama is the driest desert
Some Atacama weather stations have never recorded rain, and NASA tests Mars equipment there.
Fun fact#719
Atacama skies are the clearest
Dry air and high altitude make the Atacama the best place on Earth for optical astronomy, hosting major observatories.
Fun fact#721
Easter Island's statues have bodies
Excavations showed the famous moai heads sit on full buried torsos covered in carvings.
Fun fact#723
Patagonia's ice field is the third largest
Only Antarctica and Greenland hold more ice than the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
Fun fact#725
Perito Moreno advances instead of retreating
This glacier is one of the few in the world that is broadly stable, periodically damming a lake until the ice arch collapses.
Fun fact#727
Argentina has the widest avenue
Avenida 9 de Julio spans about 110 metres, and crossing it can take more than one traffic light.
Fun fact#729
Tango was born in the port
Tango emerged in the working-class port neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires and Montevideo in the late 19th century.
Fun fact#731
Aconcagua is the highest peak outside Asia
At 6,961 metres, Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in both the Southern and Western hemispheres.
Fun fact#733
Iguazu has 275 separate falls
The Iguazu system comprises up to 275 waterfalls spread nearly three kilometres along the border.
Fun fact#735
Brazil covers almost half of South America
Brazil occupies about 47 percent of the continent and borders every South American country except Chile and Ecuador.
Fun fact#736
The Amazon has no bridges over its main stem
No bridge crosses the main Amazon River. Communities rely on ferries and boats along thousands of kilometres.
Fun fact#739
The Amazon meets the Rio Negro without mixing
Different temperatures and speeds keep the dark Rio Negro and sandy Solimoes flowing side by side for kilometres.
Fun fact#741
Brasilia was built from nothing
Brasilia was planned and constructed in about four years and inaugurated in 1960, laid out in the shape of an aeroplane.
Fun fact#742
Rio's Christ was struck by lightning
The statue is hit regularly, and spare soapstone from the original quarry is kept for repairs.
Fun fact#745
Brazil grows a third of the world's coffee
Brazil has been the largest coffee producer for more than 150 years, mostly arabica from Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo.
Fun fact#746
Uruguay legalised beach camping culture
Uruguay's small population and long coast mean entire stretches of beach stay empty even in high summer.
Fun fact#749
Paraguay has two official languages
Guarani is co-official with Spanish and is spoken by a majority of the population, unusual in the Americas.
Fun fact#750
Cuba's classic cars are necessity
A 1959 import ban froze Havana's fleet, so mechanics kept 1950s American cars running with improvised parts.
Fun fact#752
Jamaica gave the world reggae
Reggae developed in Kingston in the late 1960s and is recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
Fun fact#755
Haiti and the Dominican Republic share one island
Hispaniola is one of very few Caribbean islands divided between two sovereign states.
Fun fact#756
Dominica is the nature island
Dominica has a boiling lake, 365 rivers by local count, and a 184-kilometre hiking trail down its spine.
Fun fact#759
Barbados has flying fish on its coins
The flying fish is a national symbol, and cou-cou with flying fish is the country's national dish.
Fun fact#760
Trinidad has a natural asphalt lake
Pitch Lake holds the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world and refills itself as it is dug out.
Fun fact#762
The Bahamas has swimming pigs
Feral pigs on Big Major Cay swim out to meet boats, a habit that turned into an unlikely tourist attraction.
Fun fact#765
Puerto Rico glows in three bays
Puerto Rico has three bioluminescent bays, more than anywhere else, with Mosquito Bay the brightest recorded.
Fun fact#766
Saba has the shortest commercial runway
Saba's airstrip is around 400 metres with cliffs at both ends, flown only by small aircraft and specially certified pilots.
Fun fact#768
Greenland is part of the Americas
Geographically Greenland sits on the North American plate although politically it is tied to Denmark.
Fun fact#770
The Panamerican Highway has a gap
The Pan-American Highway runs from Alaska to Argentina except for about 100 kilometres of roadless jungle in the Darien.
Fun fact#772
The Andes are the longest mountain range
The Andes run about 7,000 kilometres along South America's spine through seven countries.
Fun fact#774
Hummingbirds only live in the Americas
All 360-plus hummingbird species are native exclusively to the Americas, with the greatest diversity in Ecuador and Colombia.
Fun fact#776
Llamas were the only Andean pack animal
Before horses arrived, llamas were the sole large pack animal in the Andes, which shaped how the Inca built roads.
Fun fact#778
Maple syrup has a strategic reserve
Quebec maintains a global strategic maple syrup reserve to stabilise prices between good and bad harvests.
Fun fact#780
The Great Lakes hold a fifth of surface fresh water
Together the five Great Lakes contain about 21 percent of the world's surface fresh water.
Fun fact#782
Niagara Falls has been switched off
In 1969 engineers diverted the American Falls to study rock erosion, leaving the cliff temporarily dry.
Fun fact#784
Antarctica is a desert
Antarctica receives so little precipitation that it qualifies as the largest desert on Earth.
Fun fact#786
Antarctica has no time zone
Research stations use the time zone of their supply country, so neighbours can be hours apart.
Fun fact#788
Antarctic ice holds most fresh water
Around 70 percent of the world's fresh water is locked in the Antarctic ice sheet, up to four kilometres thick.
Fun fact#790
Australia is wider than the Moon's diameter
Australia measures about 4,000 kilometres east to west, wider than the Moon's 3,475-kilometre diameter.
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