Portal:Geography

T4 was a seagoing torpedo boat operated by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1932. Originally 79 T, a 250t-class torpedo boat of the Austro-Hungarian Navy built in 1914, she was armed with two 66 mm (2.6 in) guns and four 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes, and could carry 10–12 naval mines. She saw active service during World War I, performing convoy, patrol, escort and minesweeping tasks, anti-submarine operations and shore bombardment missions. In 1917, the suffixes of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats were removed, and thereafter she was referred to as 79. Underway during the short-lived mutiny by Austro-Hungarian sailors in early February 1918, her captain realised the danger and put her crew ashore. She was part of the escort force for the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought Szent István during the action that resulted in the sinking of that ship by Italian torpedo boats in June 1918.

Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, 79 was allocated to the Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which later became the Royal Yugoslav Navy, and was renamed T4. At the time, she and the seven other 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels of the fledgling maritime force. During the interwar period, T4 and the rest of the navy were involved in training exercises and cruises to friendly ports, but activity was limited by reduced naval budgets. In 1932, she ran aground on the island of Drvenik Mali off the central Dalmatian coast and the hull broke in half. The bow remained on the island, and the stern was towed to the Tivat Arsenal in the Bay of Kotor. As a result, it became a standing joke among Yugoslav sailors that this made T4 the "world's longest torpedo boat". Eventually, both sections were scrapped where they were. (Full article...)

Brownhills is a historic market and industrial town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall of the West Midlands county, England. The town is located south of Cannock Chase and close to the large Chasewater reservoir, it is 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast of Walsall, a similar distance southwest of Lichfield and 13 miles (20.9 km) miles north-northwest of Birmingham. It is part of the Aldridge-Brownhills parliamentary constituency and neighbours the villages of Pelsall and Walsall Wood. It lies within the boundaries of the historic county of Staffordshire.

The town lies close to the route of the ancient Watling Street, and although there is no record of its existence before the 17th century, Ogley Hay – a district of the town today – is recorded as a settlement in the Domesday Book. Brownhills quickly grew around the coal-mining industry, especially after the town became linked to the canal and railway networks in the mid-19th century. By the end of the century, Brownhills had grown from a hamlet of only 300 inhabitants to a town of more than 13,000, of whom the vast majority were employed in the coal industry. Mining remained the town's principal industry until the 1950s; the subsequent closure of the pits led to a severe economic decline that has continued until now. The local authority instituted a regeneration programme in 2007, which was hoped would revive the town's fortunes, but there has been little subsequent development. (Full article...)

Ubinas is an active stratovolcano in the Moquegua Region of southern Peru, approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) east of the city of Arequipa. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, it rises 5,672 metres (18,609 ft) above sea level. The volcano's summit is cut by a 1.4-kilometre-wide (0.87 mi) and 150-metre-deep (490 ft) caldera, which itself contains a smaller crater. Below the summit, Ubinas has the shape of an upwards-steepening cone with a prominent notch on the southern side. The gently sloping lower part of the volcano is also known as Ubinas I and the steeper upper part as Ubinas II; they represent different stages in the volcano's geological history.

The most active volcano in Peru, Ubinas has a history of small to moderate explosive eruptions as well as a few larger eruptions, such as in 1667, along with persistent degassing and ash emissions. Activity at the volcano began in the Pleistocene epoch, and led to the growth of the current mountain in two phases. Among the recent eruptions was the 2006–2007 event, which produced eruption columns and led to ash fall in the region, resulting in health issues and evacuations. During the most recent activity, from 2013 to 2017, a lava flow formed inside the crater, and further ash falls led to renewed evacuations of surrounding towns. Ubinas is monitored by the Peruvian geological service INGEMMET, which has published a volcano hazard map for Ubinas and regular volcanic activity reports. (Full article...)

Marojejy National Park (/məˈroʊdʒɛdʒiː/) is a national park in the Sava region of northeastern Madagascar. It covers 55,500 ha (214 sq mi) and is centered on the Marojejy Massif, a mountain chain that rises to an elevation of 2,132 m (6,995 ft). Access to the area around the massif was restricted to research scientists when the site was set aside as a strict nature reserve in 1952. In 1998, it was opened to the public when it was converted into a national park. It became part of the World Heritage Site known as the Rainforests of the Atsinanana in 2007. "Unique in the world, a place of dense, jungly rainforests, sheer high cliffs, and plants and animals found nowhere else on earth", Marojejy National Park has received plaudits in the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine for its natural beauty and rich biodiversity that encompasses critically endangered members of the silky sifaka. To that end, a global consortium of conservation organizations, including the Lemur Conservation Foundation, Duke Lemur Center and Madagascar National Parks, have sought to promote research and conservation programs in Marojejy National Park, neighboring Anjanaharibe-Sud Reserve and Antanetiambo Private Reserve, to protect the endemic flora and fauna that reside in northeastern Madagascar. In addition, these organizations have implemented a variety of community-based initiatives to mitigate human encroachment on the park, such as poaching and selective logging, by encouraging local communities to engage in afforestation and silvicultural initiatives to promote a sustainable alternative to mining, slash-and-burn agriculture, and wood collection.

The wide range of elevations and rugged topography of the massif create diverse habitats that transition quickly with changes in altitude. Warm, dense rainforest can be found at lower elevations, followed by shorter forests at higher elevations, followed still by cloud forest, and topped near the peaks with the only remaining undisturbed mountain scrub in Madagascar. Better growing conditions for plants can be found on the eastern side of the mountains, which receives more rain than the western side. This habitat diversity lends itself to high levels of biodiversity. At least 118 species of bird, 148 species of reptile and amphibian, and 11 species of lemur are known to occur within Marojejy National Park. One of the lemurs, the silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus) is listed among "The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates". The helmet vanga (Euryceros prevostii) is considered the iconic bird species of the park. (Full article...)

An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Since the ice forms from the incremental buildup of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper ones, and an ice core contains ice formed over a range of years. Cores are drilled with hand augers (for shallow holes) or powered drills; they can reach depths of over two miles (3.2 km), and contain ice up to 800,000 years old.

The physical properties of the ice and of material trapped in it can be used to reconstruct the climate over the age range of the core. The proportions of different oxygen and hydrogen isotopes provide information about ancient temperatures, and the air trapped in tiny bubbles can be analysed to determine the level of atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide. Since heat flow in a large ice sheet is very slow, the borehole temperature is another indicator of temperature in the past. This data can be combined to find the climate model that best fits all the available data. (Full article...)

Jerome is a town in the Black Hills of Yavapai County in the U.S. state of Arizona. Founded in the late 19th century on Cleopatra Hill overlooking the Verde Valley, Jerome is approximately 100 miles (160 km) north of Phoenix along State Route 89A between Sedona and Prescott. Supported in its heyday by rich copper mines, it was home to more than 10,000 people in the 1920s. As of the 2020 census, its population was 464.

The town owes its existence mainly to two ore bodies that formed about 1.75 billion years ago along a ring fault in the caldera of an undersea volcano. Tectonic plate movements, plate collisions, uplift, deposition, erosion, and other geologic processes eventually exposed the tip of one of the ore bodies and pushed the other close to the surface, both near Jerome. In the late 19th century, the United Verde Mine, developed by William A. Clark, extracted ore bearing copper, gold, silver, and other metals from the larger of the two. The United Verde Extension UVX Mine, owned by James Douglas Jr., depended on the other huge deposit. In total, the copper deposits discovered in Jerome's vicinity were among the richest ever found. (Full article...)

Boston is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It serves as the cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. Boston has an area of 48.4 mi² (125 km²) and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area had a population of 4.9 million in 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the eleventh-largest in the United States.

Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, including the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), Paul Revere's midnight ride (1775), the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and the Siege of Boston (1775–1776). (Full article...)

Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre (13 June 1804 – 18 July 1875), nicknamed "the Gloved Centaur", was a Brazilian army officer, politician and abolitionist. Born into a wealthy family of military background, Manuel Marques de Sousa joined the Portuguese Army in Brazil in 1817 when he was little more than a child. His military initiation occurred in the conquest of the Banda Oriental (Eastern Bank), which was annexed and became the southernmost Brazilian province of Cisplatina in 1821. For most of the 1820s, he was embroiled in the Brazilian effort to keep Cisplatina as part of its territory: first during the struggle for Brazilian independence and then in the Cisplatine War. It would ultimately prove a futile attempt, as Cisplatina successfully separated from Brazil to become the independent nation of Uruguay in 1828.

A few years later, in 1835 his native province of Rio Grande do Sul was engulfed in a secessionist rebellion, the Ragamuffin War. The conflict lasted for almost ten years, and the Count was leading military engagements for most of that time. He played a decisive role in saving the provincial capital from the Ragamuffin rebels, allowing forces loyal to the legitimate government to secure a key foothold. In 1852, he led a Brazilian division during the Platine War in an invasion of the Argentine Confederation that overthrew its dictator. He was awarded a noble title, eventually raised from baron to viscount and finally to count. (Full article...)

William Franklin Raynolds (March 17, 1820 – October 18, 1894) was an American explorer, engineer and U.S. army officer who served in the Mexican–American War and American Civil War. He is best known for leading the 1859–60 Raynolds Expedition while serving as a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers.

During the 1850s and again after his participation in the Civil War, Raynolds was the head engineer on numerous lighthouse construction projects. He oversaw riverway and harbor dredging projects intended to improve accessibility and navigation for shipping. As a cartographer, Raynolds surveyed and mapped the islands and shorelines on the Great Lakes and other regions. At least six lighthouses whose construction he oversaw are still standing. Some are still in use and of these, several are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. (Full article...)

The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662.

The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncle's power, prompting the Jingnan campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One eunuch, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa. Hongwu and Yongle emperors had also expanded the empire's rule into Inner Asia. (Full article...)

Powder House Island (also known as Dynamite Island) is an artificial island on the lower Detroit River in southeast Michigan, directly adjacent to the Canada–United States border. It was constructed in the late 1880s by the Dunbar & Sullivan Company to store explosives during their dredging of the Livingstone Channel, with the purpose of circumventing an 1880 court order forbidding the company to store explosives on nearby Fox Island.

Powder House Island was the location of dynamite storage sheds, as well as a dynamite factory and several ice houses. During this time, it was the site of a series of accidents, including fires in 1895 and 1919 (which both burned the island "to the water's edge"). Twenty short tons (18,000 kg) of the island's dynamite exploded in 1906 after two men "had been shooting with a revolver" near it; while there were no deaths (and only minor injuries to the two men), windows were shattered 3 mi (4.8 km) away and the explosion was clearly audible from 85 mi (137 km) away. (Full article...)

Knowle West is a neighbourhood in the south of Bristol, England, 2 miles (3 km) from the city centre, and mostly in the Filwood ward of Bristol City Council, although a small part of the estate lies within Knowle ward to the east. To the west are Bishopsworth and Hartcliffe, to the north Bedminster and Windmill Hill and to the south Whitchurch Park and Hengrove. In 2008, the population was 11,787.

There is evidence of late Iron Age and Roman settlements in the area. At the time of the Domesday Book, Knowle was a rural area assessed at a taxable value of two geld units. Knowle West remained rural in character until the 1930s, when a council estate was developed to provide homes for people displaced by slum clearance in the centre of the city. (Full article...)

T3 was a sea-going torpedo boat that was operated by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1941. Originally 78 T, a 250t-class torpedo boat of the Austro-Hungarian Navy built in 1914, she was armed with two 66 mm (2.6 in) guns, four 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes, and could carry 10–12 naval mines. She saw active service during World War I, performing convoy, escort and minesweeping tasks, anti-submarine operations and shore bombardment missions. In 1917 the suffixes of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats were removed, and thereafter she was referred to as 78. She was part of the escort force for the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought Szent István during the action that resulted in the sinking of that ship by Italian torpedo boats in June 1918.

Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, she was allocated to the Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which later became the Royal Yugoslav Navy, and was renamed T3. At the time, she and the seven other 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels of the fledgling maritime force. During the interwar period, T3 and the rest of the navy were involved in training exercises and cruises to friendly ports, but activity was limited by reduced naval budgets. The ship was captured by the Italians during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. After her main armament was modernised and her crew increased to 62, she served with the Royal Italian Navy under her Yugoslav designation, although she was only used for coastal and second-line tasks. Following the Italian capitulation in September 1943, she was captured by Germany and, after being fitted with additional anti-aircraft guns, served with the German Navy or the Navy of the Independent State of Croatia as TA48. In German/Croatian service her crew of 52 consisted entirely of Croatian officers and enlisted men. She was sunk by Allied aircraft in February 1945 while in the port of Trieste, where she had been built. (Full article...)

The first government of ancient Macedonia was established by the Argead dynasty of Macedonian kings during the Archaic period (8th–5th centuries BC). The early history of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia is obscure because of shortcomings in the historical record; little is known of governmental institutions before the reign of Philip II during the late Classical period (480–336 BC). These bureaucratic organizations evolved in complexity under his successor Alexander the Great and the subsequent Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties of Hellenistic Greece (336–146 BC). Following the Roman victory in the Third Macedonian War over Perseus of Macedon in 168 BC, the Macedonian monarchy was abolished and replaced by four client state republics. After a brief revival of the monarchy in 150–148 BC, the Fourth Macedonian War resulted in another Roman victory and the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia.

It is unclear if there was a formally established constitution dictating the laws, organization, and divisions of power in ancient Macedonia's government, although some tangential evidence suggests this. The king (basileus) served as the head of state and was assisted by his noble companions and royal pages. Kings served as the chief judges of the kingdom, although little is known about Macedonia's judiciary. The kings were also expected to serve as high priests of the nation, using their wealth to sponsor various religious cults. The Macedonian kings had command over certain natural resources such as gold from mining and timber from logging. The right to mint gold, silver, and bronze coins was shared by the central and local governments. (Full article...)

Aliso Creek is a 19.8-mile (31.9 km)-long, mostly urban stream in south Orange County, California. Originating in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains, it flows generally southwest and empties into the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach. The creek's watershed drains 34.9 square miles (90 km²), and it is joined by seven main tributaries. As of 2018, the watershed had a population of 144,000 divided among seven incorporated cities.

Aliso Creek flows over highly erosive marine sedimentary rock of late Eocene to Pliocene age. What would become the Aliso Creek watershed originally lay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, before being uplifted as recently as 10 million years ago. About 1.2 million years ago, the San Joaquin Hills began to uplift in the path of Aliso Creek. Occasionally swollen by wetter climates during glacial periods, the creek carved the deep water gap known today as Aliso Canyon, the main feature of Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park. (Full article...)

The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and minor islands. Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows states to exercise all powers of government not delegated to the federal government. Each state has its own constitution and government. All states and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state elects two senators, while representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census. (Full article...)

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Situated on China's southern coast just south of Shenzhen, it consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. With 7.5 million residents in a 1,114-square-kilometre (430 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world. (Full article...)

The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities in all jurisdictions are classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the cities proper, their metropolitan regions, or the extent of their urban area. A complicating factor is that many large cities in the world have not only homeless or the unhoused, but also vast slum communities. This leads to official census data being less accurate in representing the actual number of residents in a given area. (Full article...)

This is a list of countries and dependencies by population. It includes sovereign states, inhabited dependent territories and, in some cases, constituent countries of sovereign states, with inclusion within the list being primarily based on the ISO standard ISO 3166-1. For instance, the United Kingdom is considered a single entity, while the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are considered separately. In addition, this list includes certain states with limited recognition not found in ISO 3166-1. Also given in a percentage is each country's population compared with the world population, which the United Nations estimated at 8.232 billion as of 2025. (Full article...)

This is a list of the world's countries and their dependencies, ranked by total area, including land and water. (Full article...)

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Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is made possible by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering 70.8% of Earth's crust. The remaining 29.2% of Earth's crust is land, most of which is located in the form of continental landmasses within Earth's land hemisphere. Most of Earth's land is at least somewhat humid and covered by vegetation, while large ice sheets at Earth's polar deserts retain more water than Earth's groundwater, lakes, rivers, and atmospheric water combined. Earth's crust consists of slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth has a liquid outer core that generates a magnetosphere capable of deflecting most of the destructive solar winds and cosmic radiation. (Full article...)

Generation Z, often shortened to Gen Z and informally known as Zoomers, is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and the early 2010s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1997 to 2012. Most members of Generation Z are the children of Generation X, and it is predicted that many will be the parents of the proposed Generation Beta. (Full article...)

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of 9.1 million people in 2024. Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 15.1 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament. London grew rapidly in the 19th century, becoming the world's largest city at the time. Since the 19th century the name "London" has referred to the metropolis around the City of London, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised the administrative area of Greater London, governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority. (Full article...)

Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia and commonly known as simply Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River across from Virginia and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation. (Full article...)

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. England shares a land border with Scotland to the north and another land border with Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital. (Full article...)