Following the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, a deal was reached between
Ghadaffi of Libya and the British government in which the trial of the accused bombers
would happen in a neutral country in return for the extradition of the accused bombers.
The Netherlands agreed to host the trial, and so a portion of the Netherlands, a former
NATO base called Camp Zeist, became a piece of Scottish land in the Netherlands.
This land was part of Scotland, with Scottish police officers, Scottish judges, and Scottish
law.
Thus the court established on the site for the proceedings was dubbed the Scottish Court
in the Netherlands.
Following the trial and a subsequent appeal, the land was ceded back to the Netherlands,
but for that short time, Scotland was just a tiny bit bigger.
Across the channel in the area that’s always Scotland, there are two islands called Westerly
and Papa Westerly.
The airports of these two islands can boast that between them runs the shortest regularly
scheduled commercial flight in the world.
It takes a mere minute, costs 17 pounds, and travels 1.7 miles (2.7 km)—roughly the same
distance as the runway of the airport of Edinburgh—the capital of Scotland.
There are a number of places also called Edinburgh around the world, but the coolest is Edinburgh
of the Seven Seas.
Located on the British overseas territory island of Tristan da Cunha, Edinburgh of the
Seven Seas is considered to be the most remote inhabited place on earth.
The island is 1,200 miles (1,930 km) from the closest other inhabited place, the island
of St. Helena, and 1,500 miles (2,410 km)from the nearest continental land, South Africa.
There is no airport and no regular transport links off of the island.
The only way the 300 residents can reach the rest of the world is by hitching a ride on
a fishing boat, and those only come 8 or 9 times a year.
At 64 square miles (103 sq km), Tristin da Cunha is the 1060th largest island in the
world, but the 8th largest island in the world is Victoria Island, Canada.
On Victoria Island, there's a lake which is home to an island, which has a lake on it,
with one more island.
This tiny four-acre island is so remote that it is thought that no human has ever set foot
on it.
Victoria Island, the island that holds the lake that holds the island that has that lake
with this island, is slightly bigger than Great Britain yet has a population of less
than 2,000.
Also in Canada, but much farther South is Vancouver.
About 22 miles south of downtown Vancouver is Point Roberts, Washington, which is part
of the United States, however you cannot get to the rest of the USA without crossing into
Canada.
This is because Point Roberts lies south of the 49th parallel which constitutes much of
the border between the two countries.
A few thousand miles to the east, the border isn’t quite as nice and straight.
In Detroit, you counterintuitively have to travel south to get Canada, America’s northern
neighbor.
Also counterintuitively, the westernmost point of Virginia is actually more westerly than
the westernmost point of West Virginia.
And to finish off the counterintuitivlies, the eastern end of the Panama Canal flows
into the Pacific Ocean, the ocean to the west, while the western end of the Panama Canal
flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean to the east.
While we’re so close to South America, I might as well mention that there are no bridges
over the Amazon River, the second longest river in the world.
This is not because the river is too wide or anything, but rather because pretty much
nobody lives around the Amazon.
There is actually only one bridge over any of the major tributaries to the Amazon as
well.
For the few roads there are that cross the Amazon, ferries connect the two sides.
And to finish it off let’s head over to Afghanistan, which has a time zone of UTC
+ 4:30.
They’re one of a few nations in the world that align themselves to a half-hour difference
compared to universal time.
Afghanistan shares a brief 47 mile (76 kilometer) border with China, which has one time zone
for the entire country.
This means that if you step across the Afghanistan-China border you travel three and a half hours into
the future, and this is the greatest time-zone change you can make in one step on earth.