The Earth’s landmasses have some very interesting shapes, like how the west coast of South America
is on more or less the same latitude as the east coast of North America, or how Maine
is the closest US state to Africa. However, once you get humans involved to draw their
little borders and build their cities, things can get even weirder. No surprise, weird geographical
phenomena are things I find incredibly fascinating, so if you’ll forgive me I’m basically
just going to spend this whole video nerding out about weird geography facts (but hopefully
some that you probably haven’t heard before) like how Germany is technically only two countries
away from the US.
So you’re probably asking yourself, how? What do I even mean when I say Germany is
two countries apart from the US? Is it some super technical thing where I actually mean
France and Spain, once you exclude the Atlantic Ocean? No, what I mean is that Germany borders
a country that borders another country that borders the US. Okay, but… how?! Well let’s
start in Germany, first you’re going to want to go east (actually you’re going to
want to go east the whole way, this should be a little hint), so first we reach Poland,
which obviously borders Germany. As if they hadn’t had enough of their bad neighbors,
Poland also borders Russia, which is obviously crucial to this. Now Poland doesn’t border
Russia proper, but it does border the exclave of Kaliningrad (which I’m sure the comments
will be quick to point out was once the German city of Königsberg) and still counts. Now
Russia’s going to help us because it is… is it too late to say “heckin’ chonker”?
Yeah probably, I’ve already made that joke a couple times, but nonetheless Russia is
massive, so going east we eventually reach the northeasternmost point in Asia, or actually
a little bit further to the Diomede islands. You’ve probably heard of these guys, they’re
a pair of islands, one of which belongs to Russia and the other to the US, and right
between the two runs a maritime border with Alaska, putting two countries directly between
the US and Germany. What’s crazy about this is that when I said
there are only two countries between Germany and the US, I didn’t necessarily have to
use Poland and Russia, there are actually two more pairs I could use, as pointed out
by Geography World on Twitter. So what other countries does Germany border? Well let’s
see, Czechia, Austria, Switzerland… France… France is somewhat famously not confined to
its territories in mainland Europe and Corsica, but also has far-flung territories scattered
all over the place, most of which also fully count as France. If you want to learn more
about these I made a video on these territories a few months ago, but what you need know here
is the existence of St. Pierre and Miquelon, a pair of islands located right off the coast
of Newfoundland, complete with a maritime border with the island (and yeah we’re going
to count maritime borders for the sake of explanation), and now that you’re in Canada,
yeah I’m pretty sure Canada borders the US no problem. Finally we have, Luxembourg,
Belgium, Netherlands, and Denmark… if by Denmark we mean the Kingdom of Denmark, complete
with the territory of Greenland, and what’s that up there? Oh you bet that’s another
maritime border, with Canada! Okay maybe not a true maritime border, but it does have border
disputes! Need I say more? So Germany is two countries away from the US, in three different
ways, not exactly a realization that comes intuitively, but one that shows both how big
Russia is and how many territories countries like France have all around the world.
Going back to Germany, a good amount of playing with the measure tool on Google Maps reveals
that Cologne is just as far from Berlin as it is from London. Going southward, Munich
is also closer to Bosnia and Herzegovina than it is to Berlin. That however is nothing compared
to a city like Freiburg im Breisgau, which really shows how kind of weirdly located Berlin
is for a capital, since it is actually closer to Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg City, Amsterdam,
Bern, Ljubljana, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and even Prague than it is to Berlin,
seven foreign capitals (ten if you count the tiny microstates). These facts might make
you feel like you’re this close to losing it, but Moldova is already about that close
to not being landlocked. Seriously, the town of Palanca, located about 45 kilometers west
of Odessa, is less than 3 kilometers from the Dniester Estuary on the Black Sea, but
that 3km of land still belongs to Ukraine, so… sorry, Moldova.
Of course the countries of Europe themselves are pretty small-- even the largest non-Russia
country in Europe (Ukraine) is still smaller than the largest US state (Alaska)-- but one
country that is ginormous is China. China has always seemed far from Europe (and to
be fair it is), but if you look at the westernmost point in the country, just west of Kashgar,
you’ll find that it is actually closer to Istanbul than Shanghai. In fact, it is also
closer to Belarus than to Beijing. Let’s close this video with a few fun facts about
linguistic geography, like what the closest English-speaking country to Italy is. I‘ll
give you a hint, it‘s a left-side driving island nation. That’s right, it’s Malta
(and, well, to be fair they were a British colony at one point, so that would explain
that). Finally, what is the largest English-speaking
city in the world? By that I mean what is the most populous city in an English-speaking
country? It’s not New York, it’s not London, it’s not even in what’s generally considered
the Anglosphere, it’s New Delhi, India, home to about the same number of people as
live in New York and London… combined. Okay, now what is the largest Francophone city in
the world? Judging from the last answer of course, I’d imagine you’re waiting for
me to not say Paris, and you’re right it’s not Paris, it’s Kinshasa, in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (or Dr. Congo, as I prefer), beating out Paris by 3 million people.
Lastly, what is the largest German-speaking city in the world? A bit of a tough one, isn’t
it? Yeah it’s actually Berlin, the world isn’t *that* weird.
As always thanks for watching, and please let me know if you want more of these kinds
of videos. If you want to peer in on discussions about future videos, memes, and other random
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new every Sunday.