Atlas of Geographical Curiosities

by Vitali Vitaliev

The Atlas of geographical curiosities – a glorious celebration of an unusual world. Welcome to this compendium of interesting, unexpected and downright bizarre geographical anomalies that are guaranteed to delight and inspire. The world is full of little-known facts that have sometimes been a source of diplomatic or military struggle. Many still exist under the radar now to be revealed by this entertaining treasure trove. Where else can you •Countries that do not really exist •the world's only town that lies almost entirely underground •a UK hotel room which became Yugoslavian for one day only •an island which is Spanish for six months of the year and French for the other six •a city which is officially constituted by one single high-rise (14 floor) skyscraper •the world's first and only railway that belonged to one country and ran across another •a hotel room whose bedroom is in France and whose bathroom is in Switzerland •Bir Tawil which is one of the very few territories on earth not claimed by any country •the only place in the world where you can find so-called counter-enclaves • where in a 20-minute walk around the town you can cross an international border at least 50 times at 50 different points The world is full of wonderful and strange geographical irregularities. Turn to the Atlas of geographical curiosities to uncover more little known but important facts.

Genres: Nonfiction, Geography, Travel

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 15, 2023

About the author

Born in 1954.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitali_V...

Reviews

[Cheap.And.Cheerful · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eigentlich beinhaltet dieses Buch interessante Geschichten über Staaten, die z.B. als Enklaven in anderen Staaten liegen oder mal für einen Tag anderen Staaten angehörten. Es geht um winzige Flecken auf der Erde, die aufgrund merkwürdiger politischer Machtverhältnisse willkürliche Zugehörigkeiten erfahren und dadurch auch oft willkürlich wirkenden Gesetzen unterworfen sind.

Manche Geschichten sind skurril, andere amüsant und einige auch sehr unspektakulär. Zu jeder Geschichte finden sich eine Landkarte und manchmal ein paar Fotos.

Leider konnte ich nichts davon so richtig genießen, da die Übersetzung aus dem Englischen grauenhaft ist. Das ganze Buch ist voller Rechtschreibfehler, die Satzstruktur ist nicht an die deutsche Grammatik angepasst und dadurch liest sich der Text leider sehr sperrig und teilweise auch konfus.
Manchmal wurden Eigennamen übersetzt, manchmal nicht. Insgesamt wirkt es so, als wäre der ganze Text bei Google Translate eingegeben und nicht lektoriert worden.

Somit habe ich leider nichts positives über dieses Buch zu sagen, obwohl die Idee mir gut gefällt.

Übersetzt von Babyl Traducciones 🤡

[Karel · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes interesting, but sometimes also a bit dry, lots of difficult connections and naming of yearnumbers without more significance.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This kind of book is right up my alley and the contents are exactly as described by the title. The "curiosities" of the 59 locations are mostly administrative ones, dictated by unusual geography as influenced by historical incidents. Each entry starts with a map (naturally), and then a page or two of explanatory text, detailing how the curiosity came to be. The bulk of the entries are exclaves or enclaves, or some variation thereof and the book is best consumed in short bursts, as all the administrative minutiae starts to run together if one reads too much at a go.

Speaking of reading -- the one weakness of the book is the readability of the text. The designers have decided not to indent paragraph breaks, which makes for an awkward look -- compounded by overly long line lengths. There are a number of instances where there are hyphenation errors, which makes me think the typographic style sheets were changed between different language editions or something. It's a pity because otherwise the design is pretty thoughtful (another quibble is that few of the maps are a little basic). In any event, it still makes for a nice gift book for the reader interested in the world.

[RumBelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am of two minds about this book.

On the one hand, the information in it was captivating. There were a lot of facts in here I did not know, and reading about all these extraordinary places was fun. Some of the more compelling, at least for me, were:

Yonge Street in Canada - Lost street in the world, almost two thousand km, it stretches across Toronto

Sark - One of the Channel Islands that is still administered by a hereditary ruler

Pays Quint - This is a territory that belongs to Spain, but is actually administered by France

What disappointed me were the illustrations. All of these places were just so unique and fascinating and, for at least 85% of the book all we had was a map showing the location of the place, more often than not, as just a dot, or a line. No photos, no color images actually portraying these places. That was a real mistake in my view.

If you are a geography fan, a history fan or someone who likes weird, interesting facts, try this book.

[Adan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, fun book about various strange borders and border anomalies from around the world (including many enclaves and exclaves), and their historical reasons for existing. I wish there had been more detailed maps for some of them, but overall a very enjoyable book (and Baarle in Belgium and the Netherlands is clearly an inspiration for China Miéville’s ‘The City and the City’).

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leuk genoeg. Als je van geografische feitjes houdt, is dit vermakelijk. Het was geen top boek. Ik mistte meer fotos van de genoemde plaatsen, en de kaarten zelf waren soms niet duidelijk genoeg. De verhalen zelf werden soms ook wel wat langdradig. "Ah ja de zoveelste enclave situatie met Duitsland en een buurland", sommige waren leuker en unieker, andere voegde weinig toe, behalve paginas.

[Christian Crowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book that i found on display at the library. I read most of our while standing in the stacks! The photos are a nice inclusion, though would be better with captions, so we know what we're looking at.

[JaumeMuntane · Rating 4 out of 5]

3'5/5

[Marien Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heerlijk nerdboek vol ex- en enclaves waar je nog nooit van hebt gehoord.

[Sobia A Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheds a lot of understanding about the ongoing turmoil in the world.