In the previous post of this series, the military installation of Alert in Nunavut, Canada was named the northernmost permanently inhabited point. While this is indeed true, it is only accessible to assigned military personnel. For the adventurers out there, we will have to content ourselves with visiting or living on the island of Spitsbergen, …
Located in a shifting sea of ice, the North Pole sits at the center of the Arctic Ocean, the literal top of the world. The shifting of the ice makes it impossible to establish a permanent base at the pole, though drifting stations have been created through the decades that are manned for several weeks …
While many of the over six million maps in the Geography and Map Division are of a serious nature, there are also those meant to amuse the viewer. There is one such atlas in the collection titled Geographical fun : being humourous outlines of various countries, with an introduction and descriptive lines. Published in 1868, …
In the previous post of this blog series, Extremities of the Earth, we explored the depths of the lowest natural point on earth. We will now travel in the opposite direction, to the heights of Mount Everest, the highest point on earth from sea level at 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level. The peak …
It was once thought that the ocean floor was a vast, flat, featureless plain. In the 1840s, explorers began to measure the depth of the ocean and came to the realization that there was as much variety in the contours of the ocean floor as there was on dry land. It is at the bottom …
Where is the lowest point on dry land? Or the northernmost inhabited point on earth? How about the highest city? All of these questions and many more will be unraveled in this new occasional series, Extremities of the Earth, created to explore the farthest reaches of our planet. For this inaugural post for the series, …
The following post is by Mike Buscher, head of the Reference Team in the Geography and Map Division. This baseball postseason has been a particularly exciting time for baseball fans. The first five games of the 2017 World Series have truly been an “October Classic,” featuring two teams that have not appeared in a World …
If you have read other Library of Congress blogs, in particular the Prints and Photographs Division’s Picture This, you may recognize my name. I am now working in the Geography and Map Division and will be an active member of the Worlds Revealed blog team. I am excited for the opportunity to share my findings …
