Scottish River Basins

Scottish River Basins

1290 x 1674

‘The shape of Scotland (and the rest of UK) is very beautiful. I like how Scotland has parallel lakes (lochs). How different is the history and culture of the islands off the coast when compared to the mainstream island ?

The highlands and islands of scotland have similar cultures due to their low population densities and the highland clearings having changed life there as well. They’re all much more rural and have much higher levels of Gaelic speakers compared to the Scottish lowlands.’

Australian Water Catchments

Australian Water Catchments

5033 x 3835

“anyone know what the strange grouping of straight lines in the middle is?

It’s the parallel dunes of the Simpson Desert. The map is procedurally generated by simulating where water would travel if there were enough to flow on the surface. Assuming the flow wouldn’t breach the dunes, it forces drainage into parallel lines between the dunes. In reality though, the fact that it basically never rains there, or at least in any significant enough amounts to create run-off means that these courses are more hypothetical than anything.”

1850 map showing the comparative length of the world's rivers and lakes

1850 map showing the comparative length of the world’s rivers and lakes. It includes a list of rivers and lakes at the bottom

4306 x 5581

‘The main oddity with the Mississippi-Missouri system is that the Missouri is the longest of the two by a good long bit – the main reason that the Mississippi is considered the main river is really just because European mapmakers discovered it first.

However, even when the whole thing is measured from the Missouri’s headwaters – where it should be measured from, strictly speaking – it’s still shorter than the Amazon and Nile, although by a lot less than when it’s measured from the Mississippi’s headwaters.

Mainly, people tend to get excited when they realize the screwy way that the Mississippi’s length is usually reckoned, or sometimes just simply add the two rivers together. This map is old, too, and the interior of Africa wasn’t that well explored, so the precise length of the Nile probably wasn’t actually known – so by what people knew at this point, the considerably better-surveyed Missouri probably was the longest river of all.

(And that may also be a factor – the modern idea that the Mississippi is the longest river may very well still percolate from a time when that was an entirely reasonable conclusion.)’

Water catchments of Australia

Water catchments of Australia

4018 × 3242

‘This is incredible. I love the way there are so many large catchment areas in the east of the continent however once you get in to the west it is all broken up into tiny sections … Tiny?! Some of those catchment areas are still the size of Belgium … Thank you kind sir for using my country as a measuring reference … For some reason, unknown to me, us Aussies use Belgium a lot when referring to the size of portions of Australia. I don’t get it, but that just happens … Belgium is probably the most well known, culturally significant country that’s extremely small.

It’s a good benchmark. Everyone knows about Singapore but everyone also knows that it’s basically just a city. Not everyone knows about Luxembourg and Lichtenstein.

But Belgium was a coloniser, and went to war with other European countries. It’s a big deal, so it feels meaningful to say “we’re so massive you could fit Belgium into one of our cattle stations”.’