Greenland - Fun With Maps

In 2022 we did a Fun with Maps episode on Greenland.  It’s fascinating, especially in light of recent events.  At its closest, Greenland is just 10 miles from Canada! Interesting information about early US attempts to buy Greenland two years after the Alaska purchase but Congress was against it.  Some great stories. Watch.  

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Fun with Maps - Carpathian Mountains and Rusyns

 In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson looks at the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathian Mountains are in Eastern Europe and form an arc through several countries including Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Czech Republic, Austria, and Serbia. Important cities such as Kraków (Poland), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania) are in or near the Carpathians.

What is most interesting about the Carpathians are the people who come from there. You may hear them called Rusyns, Rutheni, Ruthenes, Carpatho-Rusyns or another variation but basically they are an East Slavic ethnic group from the Eastern Carpathians in Central Europe. They speak Rusyn, an East Slavic language variety, treated variously as either a distinct language or a dialect of the Ukrainian language.

The Rusyns are inexorably linked to the Carpathian Mountains and vice versa. The Rusyns do not have a specific country to call home. The traditional homeland of the Rusyn people, Carpathian Rus', lies in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains, on the borders of modern-day Ukraine, Poland, and Slovakia. Today, approximately three-quarters of Rusyns reside within Ukraine, specifically the geographic region known as Transcarpathia (historic Subcarpathian Rus') The United States holds the largest population of Rusyns outside of Carpathian Rus', mostly within the former industrial centers of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States like Ohio and Pennsylvania. At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, approximately 225,000 Rusyns immigrated to the US. This video also covers Aleksander Dukhnovich who is a sort of 'George Washington' of the Rusyns. He is famous for saying "I was, am, and always will be a Rusyn."

This part of Europe has had tremendous geopolitical changes over the years even through the 20th century with the world wars and the forming of Czechoslovakia and dissolution of Yugoslavia and other factors. You will see why Carpatho-Ukraine has been called The One Day Republic. The Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine existed for just one day on March 15, 1939, before it was occupied and annexed by Hungary. The most famous Carpatho-Ukrainian might be Andy Warhol, the pop artist who pioneered the concept of 'fifteen minutes of fame'.

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Fun with Maps – Condominiums all over the Globe

 In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson explains a new meaning of a common word that applies to maps and international law – condominium. (No, it's not what you think)

He looks at maps of Antarctica, Pheasant Island, Sudan, the Gulf of Fonseca and Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, Colombia, Jamaica, Andorra, Cyprus, Bosnia, Croatia, New Hebrides – Vanuatu, Hans Island, Togo and even the Oregon Territory in the US.

He also looks at some proposed new condominiums that would involve Australia, England, Spain, Gibraltar, Israel, Palestine and Northern Ireland. He predicts that you will never again hear the word ‘condominium’ again and just think of a building with shared units.

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Fun with Maps - The Underground Railroad

 In this episode of Fun with Maps host Dan Hanson looks at a very special map – a map that wasn’t recorded because it was dangerous to do so.  It’s the map of the Underground Railroad. 

 The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early 1800s to help slaves escape into free states and Canada.  It was run by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees.  Ohio had many stops on the Underground Railroad.  Canada was an ultimate destination since they had abolished slavery in 1793. The short distance across Lake Erie from Cleveland to Canada made the city a popular destination.  Cleveland was codenamed Hope on the Underground Railroad and the ultimate destination was Port Stanley in Ontario Canada which was codenamed Praise the Lord. 

 We recorded this episode at the Cozad-Bates House at the corner of Mayfield and East 115th Street in University Circle (just north of the Little Italy Neighborhood) in Cleveland. It is the only surviving pre-Civil War building in University Circle. The house has been restored by a non-profit called Restore Cleveland Hope and we spoke with board members and docents Kevin Cronin and Kathryn Puckett to examine the maps.  

We began with a map of Cleveland Ohio in 1957 and then widened to a map of the Western Reserve which shows how close (50 miles!) Canada is to Cleveland.  Then we looked at Underground Railroad maps in Ohio. Experts say there were more routes to Canada through Ohio than anywhere else.  This included the town near Cincinnati which was the setting for the book which influenced Abraham Lincoln, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  

We looked at St. John’s Church, still in existence at West 28th and Church in Cleveland.  This Church has been documented as a site that house slaves on the Underground Railroad.  We heard about John Brown the black barber who operated on Cleveland’s Public Square.  And Kathryn reminded us that where her family came from in Oklahoma was very different than in Ohio because Ohio was a free state and Oklahoma wasn’t a state until 1907.  

Finally we see how the geography played a role.  The slightly elevated terrain let people spot slave catchers and the location on Doan Brook which emptied into Lake Erie was ideal for escaping. 

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Fun with Maps - Greenalnd

 The story is that Erik the Red named the ice covered Greenland and the green covered Iceland that way to attract settlers to Greenland and dissuade them from coming to Iceland. 

 In this episode of Fun with Maps host Dan Hanson looks at that story about naming the largest island in the world, Greenland.  (Isn’t Australia bigger? Watch and find out). 

Many are surprised that Greenland is part of North America and part of the Kingdom of Denmark.  Greenland is 80% covered with ice and has historically, and currently, been affected by changes to the climate. 

After the US bought Alaska from Russia in the 1860’s, Secretary of State William Seward tried to buy Greenland and Iceland.  Congress voted it down.  Other attempts by the US to buy Greenland have also been rejected.  

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Fun with Maps – Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)

 The recent passing of Queen Elizabeth led to some confusion, even in media reports, about the difference between England, the UK, Great Britain and so on. Was she Queen of England?  Why was she in Scotland? What about the Prince of Wales?

In this episode of Fun with Maps host Dan Hanson looks at the island of Great Britain which consists of England, Scotland and Wales.  It is not the same as England or the United Kingdom. Great Britain is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world.

So what’s the United Kingdom?  The United Kingdom is a sovereign country in Europe that comprises England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and many smaller islands within the British Isles.

This episode also covers the English Channel, the Chunnel, the Mull of Kintyre, the character of Britannia, the Firth of Forth, Treaty of Union, the patron saints and flags of the 3 countries, the vast range of the British Empire and more.  See more Fun with Maps episodes.  

Tour de France

 I admit that I knew very little about the Tour de France outside of hearing names like Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong and about the yellow jersey.

But while flipping through TV channels my sister and I saw some of the race and became hooked. 

The peloton is particularly intriguing with the large group of riders mere inches from each other and the strategies for drafting and more.  There are also meaningful green, white and polka dot jerseys.

The 2022 Tour de France began on July 1 with the Grand Départ in Denmark and ends July 24 in Paris. 

Watch the special episode of Fun with Maps about the Tour de France.

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Fun with Maps - Macau

 In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson discusses a Special Administrative Region (S.A.R.) of the People's Republic of China called Macau.

 Macau is known as the "Las Vegas of the East", and some call it the gaming capital of the world.  It has a gambling industry seven times larger than that of Las Vegas.  

The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and with a population of about 680,000 and an area of just 12.7 sq. miles, it is also the most densely populated region in the world. 

This episode covers the history of the Portuguese settlement of Macau by Jorge Álvares to the transfer to China on December 20, 1999 after 442 years of Portuguese rule.  

This episode looks at maps of the region around Macau including Hong Kong, the Pearl River Estuary and Delta and Guangdong Province and Guangzhou which you may know as Canton. 

If you like learning about the world and its people by studying maps, consider subscribing to this series.  See more Fun with Maps episodes 

Fun with Maps – Kaliningrad aka Königsberg

 This episode of Fun with Maps takes a look at a very strategic piece of land called Königsberg or Kaliningrad. 

Kaliningrad is actually a city in the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. Remember that an enclave is a piece of land that is totally surrounded by a foreign territory. An exclave is a piece of land that is politically attached to a larger piece but not physically having the same borders with it because of surrounding foreign territory. Many entities are both enclaves and exclaves. Kaliningrad is an exclave because while politically attached to Russia it is bordered by Poland and Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. An oblast is a political and administrative division of a country. Oblast is a term used by many former Soviet countries that is something like states or provinces.

So how did Russia get territory to the west of Lithuania and north of Poland? It’s a long story starting with Prussia. For much of the last 700 years or so this land was Königsberg, an historic Prussian city that then became German. As you will see, Germany was forced to give up huge patches of its conquered land at the end of WWII.

 In 1945 the Potsdam Agreement was signed by the USSR, Britain and the USA. It specifically gave Kaliningrad (known as the German Königsberg at the time) to Russia, without opposition. As you can tell from the map, it’s very important as Russia’s Baltic Navy base. 

 It was also a center of knowledge and culture with people such as Immanuel Kant, Leonard Euler, Christian Goldbach and others there.

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Fun with Maps - Ukraine

 We had always planned on doing a Fun with Maps episode about Ukraine but due to the tragic current situation we moved it up in order. People are understandably very curious to know more about the country of Ukraine. And yes it is a country. It is not THE Ukraine; it is the country of Ukraine. Using the term THE Ukraine makes it sound like a region of another country as opposed to a sovereign nation.

Ukraine is the second-largest country by area in Europe after Russia, which it borders to the east and north-east. Ukraine also shares borders with Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the south; and has a coastline along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. It spans an area of 233,062 sq. miles with a population of 43.6 million. That makes it the eighth-most populous country in Europe.

We briefly talk about the history of Ukraine including the tragedy at Chernobyl and the Holodomor. We also touch on the great writer Lesya Ukrainka and pysanky Easter eggs.

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Fun with Maps - A special look at longitude and latitude (and more)

 This is a special episode of Fun with Maps with Dan Hanson.  Instead of looking at one particular area, we look at some items that affect all the maps of earth.  These are the terms latitude and longitude.

Using those coordinates you can pinpoint any place on earth.  They are essential for ship captains and pilots and others. 

Maybe this will be a refresher course or maybe it will be new for you as we discuss latitude, longitude, the Prime Meridian, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, the Equator, International Dateline, Greenwich Mean Time, Time Zones and more.   

And we explain how you can be at a spot on Earth where it is both today and yesterday. (like in the picture from I, Plenz above of the International Date Line in Fiji.

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Fun with Maps - Malta

Location, location, location.  That well-known real estate phrase certainly rings true for this episode’s map.  In this episode we are looking at the map of a small country that has a great strategic location – about midway between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal in the Mediterranean Sea. 

You may know it for two popular items – the Maltese Cross and the Maltese Falcon, a 1941 Humphrey Bogart movie.  Of course I am talking about the Southern European island country of Malta, an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea just 50 miles to the south of Sicily, 176 miles east of Tunisia and 207 miles north of Libya. 

 This is an interesting map –some might call it the stuff that dreams are made of – that’s a quote from Humphrey Bogart’s character Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon movie.

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Fun with Maps - Haiti

Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.

 Haiti has an estimated population of 11.4 million, making it the most populous country in the Caribbean.  The people have suffered a lot. Since 1998, Haiti has been hit by ten hurricanes and other tropical storms, causing widespread loss of life and flooding with every landfall. Other natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake, have also resulted in massive amounts of death and property and infrastructure damage, especially in urban areas like Port-au-Prince, the capital.  

They have a proud history as the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt. 

Fun with Maps - The North Pole

 From the famous polar bear riddle to Santa Claus to famous explorations and expeditions the North Pole is completely unique. The North Pole is by definition the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite to the South Pole. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there. Thanks to Gerardus Mercator we have had maps of the Arctic region and North Pole for centuries.

This video talks about the "wobble" at the North Pole, an amazing meeting between Sir Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong at the North Pole, the mystic aura of the Pole and, yes, some thoughts about Santa Claus.

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Fun with Maps – The Kamchatka Peninsula

 Fun with Maps – The Kamchatka Peninsula

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it was the first time in over 50 years that outsiders were able to visit the topic of this episode of Fun with Maps, Kamchatka.

Kamchatka is a 900-mile-long peninsula roughly the size of California, yet only 400,000 people were allowed to live there, and all had to have special military clearances. The reason for the secrecy was Kamchatka's location so near Japan and the US that Soviets could listen in on communications during the Cold War. 

 Kamchatka is an example of a map having enormous geopolitical implications. Russia may have regrets about ceding the Kuril Islands to Japan, not to mention selling Alaska to the US in 1867.  Had they not, how those events may have influenced history we will never know.  

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More Russians in Cleveland

People having Fun with Maps at One World Day

 You know who we like to have Fun with Maps.

Each year when the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation hosts the annual One World Day in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, ClevelandPeople.com makes sure everyone has fun with maps.

The ClevelandPeople.com booth had large 5' x 7' maps of Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, North America and the Middle East. Visitors placed a colorful dot on the map where there ancestors (or they) came from. At the end of the day almost 80 different countries were represented and various areas within countries. A real display of Cleveland's diversity.

Here are a few sample pictures of people finding their heritage on the maps.  See more Fun with Maps

More people having Fun with Maps at One World Day 2021

Fun with Maps - Lesotho

 There are only 3 enclaved countries in the world. By enclaved we mean an independent country whose territory is completely surrounded by the territory of one other country.  In Lesotho’s case, it is within South Africa.

 Lesotho is a unique and interesting country and the map really defines it.  Did you know that the country of Wakanda in the Marvel superhero movie Black Panther was inspired by Lesotho?  

There’s lots more interesting items about Lesotho. Keep having Fun with Maps. 

Watch the video below"

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Fun with Maps - North Africa

 Casablanca, Marrakesh, Algiers, the Barbary Coast, Morocco, the Sahara Desert, Darfur, Benghazi, Tunisia, Tripoli.

You've seen these exotic locales in movies, TV shows and the news but do you know where they are or much about them? In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson looks at North Africa.

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent and contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states (countries). This first episode in a series covering Africa includes Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco (including Western Sahara), Tunisia and Sudan.

After watching you will never listen to Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills and Nash or even the US Marines Hymn the same.

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Fun with Maps - Madagascar

 In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson looks at what has been called the 8th continent – Madagascar.

Map of Africa highlighting Madagascar

The map shows how isolated Madagascar is from the rest of the world and that makes it a hotbed of biodiversity - 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth.  It has varieties of plants and animals that do not exist anywhere else.  

Lemur

You’ve probably seen lemurs (endemic to Madagascar) but there are thousands of other unique animals and plants such as the fossa, chameleon, the baobab tree and more.

Dan also shows a quick look at the Spiny Desert of Madagascar exhibit in the Cleveland Botanical Garden. 

Cleveland Botanical Garden - The Spiny Desert of Madagascar

Madagascar is such a unique area and host Dan Hanson had a lot of fun with this map. 

Watch the video below.

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Fun with Maps - The Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan

 In this episode of Fun with Maps, host Dan Hanson looks at the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Watch this episode.

 About 71% of the earth is covered in water but it’s mostly salt water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area, and second-largest by total volume, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. 

Great Lakes from space

Map of Michigan - Lower and Upper Peninsulas

The Yoopers sense of humor

The Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan is bounded by 3 of the Great Lakes – Superior, Michigan and Huron.  

The 5 mile Mackinac Bridge connects the lower part of Michigan with the UP.  The UP contains 29% of the land area of Michigan but just 3% of its total population.  

The Yoopers who live there have a large Finnish population. 

It’s a fascinating area and host Dan Hanson had a lot of fun with this map. He also quotes the great Plain Dealer sportswriter Terry Pluto who is a regular visitor.

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