The river carrying more water than any other on Earth. The desert where dinosaurs laid their eggs.
Twelve facts from Ayatoki's Geography genre.
7 Facts From Around the World
01
Amazon River
With a drainage basin of 7.05 million square kilometers, the Amazon is the largest river system on Earth. It also carries more water than any other river in the world — roughly a fifth of all the fresh water flowing into the oceans passes through this single river.
02
Gobi Desert
A vast desert spanning Mongolia and China. It's famous as a dinosaur fossil site — this is where paleontologists found the famous Oviraptor fossil, discovered sitting on top of a nest of eggs.
03
Euphrates River
A great river of the Middle East that, together with the Tigris, nurtured the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia — earning the region the nickname "the cradle of civilization."
04
San Marino
One of the world's smallest countries, at about 61 square kilometers with a population of roughly 33,000. Despite being entirely landlocked and surrounded on all sides by Italy, it has kept its independence for more than 1,700 years.
05
Kinshasa
The capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and one of Africa's largest megacities, with a population of roughly 14.57 million. Just across the Congo River sits Brazzaville, capital of the neighboring Republic of the Congo — reachable by a boat ride of only about 10 minutes.
06
Armenia
A small country in West Asia, known as the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its official state religion, back in the year 301.
07
Uruguay
South America's second-smallest country — but it hosted (and won) the first-ever FIFA World Cup, back in 1930.
5 Facts From Japan
08
Naiwaizan (Inner Rim Peaks)
The collective name for the five volcanic peaks inside the Aso caldera in Kyushu: Nekodake, Takadake, Nakadake, Eboshidake, and Kishimadake.
09
Koriyama
A city near the center of Fukushima Prefecture, the third-largest in the Tohoku region after Sendai and Iwaki. In the Meiji era, a national engineering project called the Asaka Canal brought water from Lake Inawashiro, transforming the area through farming and hydroelectric power.
10
Mount Tokachi
An active volcano rising 2,077 meters within Hokkaido's Daisetsuzan National Park. Its upper slopes are blanketed in volcanic ash and rubble with almost no vegetation, and it's counted among Japan's official "100 Famous Mountains."
11
Karuizawa
A highland resort town in Nagano Prefecture, developed as a villa community by Christian missionaries in the Meiji era. Its cool climate at roughly 1,000 meters of elevation draws crowds of tourists and vacation-home owners every summer.
12
Mount Asahi
Hokkaido's highest peak, part of the Daisetsuzan mountain range. It's known as the first place in Japan where autumn leaves begin to turn, with the slopes bursting into color as early as late August.