Geography Fact Week: The Grand Finale

Pigtailed macaque monkeys are employed to pick coconuts on plantations in Thailand.

Source: The best book ever written by pigtailed macaque monkeys, Bite Size Geography - 150 Facts You Won't Believe!


Explanation: Apparently, these monkeys have been taught to select only the ripe coconuts and to swim after coconuts floating in ponds and streams. At some point, there were humans doing this job. Are there any words more demoralizing than "I'm sorry, we have to let you go. We are replacing you with trained monkeys."

Special Bonus Fact: No one knows why, but Lake Hillier on Middle Island, Australia, is bright pink in color.


Nobody has any questions, however, why the nearby Lake Peptobismol is also bright pink.

One Last Fact: Jeremy's Status Message has been written by trained monkeys for over two years now!

Geography Fact Week Crawls Along With a Trail of Slime Behind It

The French eat more snails than any other people in the world.

Source: The book my daughter chooses to eat over any other book, Bite Size Geography - 150 Facts You Won't Believe!


Explanation: What can I say? They like to surrender and they like to eat gastropods. And you wonder why...

Special Bonus Fact: France is visited by more tourists each year than any other country in the world.*

It's a no brainer. They have the best toast, fries, and onion soup in the world. Viva la France!

One More French Fact: The Eiffel Tower is 2.4 inches (6 centimetres for my loyal Canadian readership) taller on a hot summer day than it is on a cold winter night.

*A little known corollary to this fact is that the French surrender to 20% of these tourists.

Geography Fact Week Rolls On.

A mild electric current 3,750 miles long runs underground through Australia.

Source: The book ranked second to only a towel by the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the one, the only Bite Size Geography - 150 Facts You Won't Believe!


Explanation: One scientist (according to the book) thinks the electric current marks the boundaries where ancient pieces of Earth's crust came together and fused into a single landmass that became Australia.

Special Bonus Made-Up Fact: All Australians crossing this line are required by law to perform the Electric Slide.

Special Bonus Real Fact: Australians call hurricanes "willy-willies."

Geography Fact Week Continues!

Half the people who live in Africa are under 15 years of age.

Source: All Geography Fact Week information is courtesy of the bible of geography, Bite Size Geography: 150 Facts You Won't Believe!


Explanation: I would assume AIDS is the primary culprit in this statistic. That would make today's status not all that funny and actually quite seriously unfunny. I think I'll go fight AIDS by joining a "Put an end to AIDS" Facebook group. That ought to stop the disease dead in its tracks. Yep. Join a Facebook group, stop a disease. It's that easy. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???

I should also mention that yesterday's blog post regarding the population density of the United States may have been my most hotly contested blog post ever. Apparently you people don't know what the Garden State Parkway traffic looks like this time of year, because the entire roadway is within a mile of the shore, and everybody on earth (and their mother) is on that road. Jeez.

Special Extra Fact: The tallest sand dunes in the Sahara desert are taller than the Empire State Building... and have never been climbed by a giant gorilla.

It's Geography Fact Week!

Geography Fact Week: More than half of all Americans live within an hour's drive of the seashore.

Source: This is from perhaps the most reputable Geography tome you could possibly have in your library. I'm speaking, of course, about Bite Size Geography - 150 Facts You Won't Believe!


Explanation: Over the course of her teaching career, my wife has accumulated numerous kids books through Scholastic's bonus program. This one appeared in our house shortly after her last day of school. Yes, all of my facts this week are based on a book for third-graders. Are these facts true? The book claims they are. That's good enough for me.

Let's look a little more deeply at this one. Here is a map of the population density of the United States as of the 2000 census:


Note that the dark dark blue color can range from 250 to 66,000 persons per square mile. Therefore, while this map doesn't give us all the information we need, it certainly tells us where the people aren't, and that's in Wyoming. Wyoming is not even remotely close to the seashore, and therefore the fact must be true.

Special Bonus Fact: If Wyoming were an ocean, more than 50% of the people in Wyoming would be more than 50% underwater.