Probably the most popular case of geographic curiosity is the fictional journey of Jules Verne's characters. The characters of the novel "Children of Captain Grant", due to misinterpreted notes found in a bottle dangling at the behest of the sea waves, made a whole trip around the world by sea and by land, never finding the Scottish captain calling for help. It was only by chance and the keen hearing of Captain Grant's son Robert that the expedition was crowned with success not at all where Lord Glenarvan and his companions expected to find the captain, based on their own interpretations of his soggy notes.
Professor Paganel Reinvents Grant's Notes
There are plenty of such examples in real geography, and who knows if the great writer was not guided by some of them, collecting material for his next excellent book. After all, the funny French geographer professor Paganel was far from the only scientist, navigator and explorer who made funny mistakes. Judge for yourself:
1. In Transbaikalia there is the Apple Ridge, the name of which has nothing to do with either apples or apple trees, which have not been found there since time immemorial. The Russians who came asked the local residents: “And what are those mountains over there?”, And heard in response “Yabylgani-Daba”. The representatives of Europe, who apparently missed apples, instantly put a suitable answer on the map.
2. Fernand Magellan and his companions were most likely the first and last people to cross the Pacific Ocean in good weather. Now the name "Quiet" sailors who are destined to sail in those waters are perceived as an evil irony - of the size and depths of the Pacific Ocean is considered the most dangerous.
3. If you look at the map of the Sverdlovsk region, you can see the nearby cities of Verkhnyaya Salda and Nizhnyaya Salda, and on the map Verkhnyaya Salda is located much lower. In fact, the incident is explained simply - the concepts of “up” and “down” are determined by the flow of the Salda River, and not by the direction of the south - north.
4. The hottest place in the Western Hemisphere is located in American California near a railway station called Siberia.
5. In general, the toponymy of both Americas is extremely secondary. Latin American names repeat the names of Spanish and Portuguese cities, North America is full of place names for their Europe. These are dozens of cities with the name Santa Cruz, Moscow, Paris, Odessa, Sevilla, Barcelona, London and even Odessa and Zaporozhye.
6. Much more interesting is the American toponymy bloopers that American journalists make. In 2008, they scared half of Atlanta by reporting to the news that a Russian invasion of Georgia had begun, though they were referring to Georgia. Also on the air they confused Niger with Nigeria, Libyan Tripoli with Lebanese Tripoli. One of the most epic punctures can be considered the placement of Hong Kong by the editors of the CNN television channel in South America on the site of the Brazilian Rio de Janeiro.
Hong Kong's move to South America according to CNN
7. Geographical names in Antarctica are coordinated by a special committee, so there are glaciers and peaks, named not only in honor of discoverers and royalty, but also immortalized names of musicians and composers. There were even three mountains named after Aramis, Porthos and Athos, but for some reason D'Artanyan was deprived of names during the division of names.
8. As a result of his second expedition, Columbus finally reached mainland America and landed, where he saw a mass of massive gold jewelry on the local residents. The land immediately received the name “rich coast” - Costa Rica - but Columbus and his companions were met by the local nobility, who bought jewelry in South America. No gold was found in Costa Rica.
9. There are indeed many canaries on the Canary Islands, but the archipelago got its name not because of birds, but because of “canis” - in Latin, dogs that very unfriendly greeted the Numidian king Yubu I (Numidia existed in northern Africa during the period of Roman power ). The royal wrath was terrible - the islands, previously called Paradise, became Dogs.
Canary Islands
10. There is a country in the world that, by the will of the government, can be located either in North or South America. This is Panama. Until 1903, the country that owned the Panama Canal considered itself a country of South America, after and to this day - North. For the sake of independence from Colombia, which previously belonged to Panama, and you can tolerate moving to another hemisphere.
Panama's dual geographic location
11. Since the 19th century, schoolchildren have been taught that the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost point in Africa. In fact, after accurate measurements of latitude, it turned out that Cape Agulhas is located 150 km to the south.
12. The names “Ecuador” and “Equatorial Guinea” apparently come from the word “equator”. However, if the South American country is indeed crossed by the zero parallel along its entire length, then the continental part of Equatorial Guinea is located north of the equator. South of the equator lies only a small island belonging to Equatorial Guinea.
13. Immediately after the civil war in the 1920s, Novosibirsk, lying on the two banks of the Ob, was in two time zones - +3 hours from Moscow on the west bank of the river and +4 on the east. This did not bother anyone - due to the absence of bridges, the city lived in two different parts.
14. Russian atlases and gazetteers deliberately distort the name of the city and province of Jujui, located in Argentina. In Latin America, “ju” is pronounced not like “zhu” in Spain, but “hu”.
15. Too much like a bike, but the story of Puerto Rico is true nonetheless. This was the original name of the city on the Caribbean island, which Christopher Columbus called San Juan. The students of the cartographer (and the maps were then drawn by hand) confused the size of the letters. As a result, Puerto Rico is now an island, and San Juan is its capital.
