Revolution Map Fun part 2

More revolution map stuff.

This week's episode sees our heroes encounter a bridge at "Freeport". Apparently that is the only bridge over the river because the Militia blew up all the other ones.   We are told this is 290 miles from Philadelphia.     Okay, there is a Freeport, Pennsylvania.   Which is on the Alleghany River, presumaby the river they are talking about, and the headstream of the Ohio River.  Which according to google maps is 288 miles from Philadelphia on foot.   They river is depicted as a raging torrent.   They also say that if they can't use this bridge (which is full of Monroe Militia) the nearest crossing is in Morgantown, 100 miles away.  Presumably they mean Morgantown West Virginia.   Which is not on the Allegany, but is on the Monongahela River, which joins the Alleghany to form the Ohio river.   The junction of these river is a little town called Pittsburgh.

The Militia would have had their work cut out for them blowing up every bridge between Freeport and Morgantown including every bridge in Pittsburgh, as well as presumably ones upstream the Alleghany (which granted does run a long while).  Also this bridge does not have a railroad.   We saw the train just a couple episodes ago run all the way to Philadelphia.  Why not walk along the tracks, presumably they cross the river, no?

Eventually after an option to find a guy with a boat fails.. they get the bright idea of swimming across which is made up to be dramatic (presumably it is a raging torrent the entire distance), but is accomplished in short order.

The purpose of this blog is not to go over the non-geographical failings of the show (I could go on about the bad guy a supposed tactical genius picking an ambush spot in some woods as the only place that provided sound tactical cover, a small area with junked cars), just to highlight the geographical stuff.

We also got some more shots of a wall map.

Some towns are in Red, some are in Black.    My initial guess was the ones in red are destroyed, but we did see that Chicago, while dangerous was inhabited and living off of fish from Lake Michigan.   Maybe the black ones are?  or maybe it indicates the presence of a militia garrison, who knows at this point.   Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati, Akron, Lansing and Milwaukee are among the ones I could make out at a quick glance.

The camera also briefly pans over stuff farther west:

Here we see the California Commonwealth.   And the western portion of the Plains Nations along with the wasteland between th em.   Note the Plains nation goes well into and past the rockies into the great basin, to a large lake.   At first I thought this was meant to be the Great Salt Lake, but its shape isn't quite right...   it is also way too big to be Tahoe.   You can seen the San Fransisco Bay area to the left... I guess it has to be the Great Salt Lake, perhaps the perspective of the camera throws us off a bit.  Also as for the shape it is an endoheric lake meaning increased rainfall levels could cause it to swell (unlike Tahoe which while part of an endoheric basin (meaning its waters do not reach the sea) it has an outlet, the Truckee river, which flows into Pyramid Lake which would be more prone to such fluctuations).

At one point the dialogue mentions the Monroe Republic is sending a diplomatic delegation to the California Commonwealth, a journey which could take years, and "those heathens" might send the delgation home in a box.

Overall this seems a remarkably large area to hold together in a "republic" without modern means of communication.   Especially one seemingly built on fear and backstabbing and paranoia of its dictator.   We don't see any means of long distance communication other than the train, no smoke signals, mirrors, semaphor, horns, etc.

Anyway not sure if we'll have much more to look at.  Apparently the show had enough budget to buy usage of Led Zepplin music next episode, which apparently was where the show needed money spent to fix its problems...

Revolution Map Analysis

Revolution Map Analysis.

We got an interesting glimpse at a map used by the NBC show "Revolution" (nutshell - all electricity stops working, 15 years later people vie for control of resources and people) of how much of North America is now constituted...

Alright.   Making up what was once the US:

• The Monroe "Republic" - where our show is set.  Capital revealed as Philadelphia, Independence Hall.  Consists of:  Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Parts of Virginia, The Mid-Atlantic States, New England, The Maritime Provinces, and parts of southern Québec.. up to the Gaspar peninsula.
• The Georgia Confederation - one of the main rivals of the Monroe Republic.  Term Confederation can't be accidental, implying it is somehow tied to the confederacy.  Consists of Kentucky, the rest of Virginia, and everything south.. including eastern Louisiana (more on that in a bit).
• The "Plains Nation" - sounds like a rather boring name, but also sounds like they imply it is somehow tied to indians (i.e., the "plains nations".Basically everything west of the Mississippi, although oddly hewing to the Minnesota / Wisconsin state line (St Croix river and whatever it goes overland).  Runs basically to the rockies.
• Texas.  Boundary between them and the Plains Nation appears to be the Arkansas River.  Includes most lf Louisiana, though not on the current Mississippi course. (again more on that below).   Interestingly Texas extends well down into Mexico.   But calls itself Texas implying Texas controls this area, not Mexico.
• Wasteland.   Assume this is an area that no one governs and no one wants.   This seems to include much of the Mountain time zone.  Also includes the Sonora area of Mexico.  Hard to tell but it looks like it also contains a larger Great Salt Lake.   Hard to tell for certain but Washington state looks to be about the same shade, so it might be an extension of Wasteland.
• California Commonwealth - California, Oregon, and parts of Nevada.   A notebook or something was set over its northern boundary so not sure on its extent.  It   Also includes all of Baja California.

Notes:

•  Overall I find it odd how many boundaries stick to old state boundaries, as well as the US-Canada boundary.
• In what I take to be some actual forethought on the part of the show, they show it not using the current Mississippi route through New Orleans and into the Mississippi River Delta.  They show it going basically along the Atchafalaya River route that the Mississppi "wants" to take, that the US Army Core of Engineers prevented with the Old River Control Structure.     I take it they have concluded in the absense of maintenance by the federal government the Mississippi overcame the Old River Control Structure and rerouted (as it used to do before the levees) to the Atchafalaya River route.  An act which would lead to the inevitable erosion of the delta perhaps as far back as New Orleans itself.    
• Nothing is really said about Canada at all... though it is odd that the Monroe Republic seems to respect the sovereignty of Ontario.   Despite having two (former?) metropoli right on the border... Detroit and Buffalo... it does not extend into Ontario at all.   Further east however it incorporates New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, presumably Prince Edward Island and what looks like Québec south of the Saint Lawrence, up to and including the Gaspar peninsula.   This strikes me as odd, there is a language difference and Québec has always struck me as an area that would abosutely stick together on its own if things came to that.   Of course this could just be an idle map of "claimed" territory.  Perhaps the Monroe Republic is interested in claiming the Saint Lawrence seeway given its ports on the Great Lakes.  But if so, why stay out of Windsor, Niagara, etc?   
• The Plains Nation sticks mostly to the US-Canada Border, being either the 49th parallel or the Rainy River/Lake of the Woods in Minnesota...except a significant chuck that appears to follow the Red River of the North up to Winnipeg, then the Assinboine River until roughly Regina (Saskatchewan), then back southeast along the Souris River (the upper part of the river, not further east where it joins the Assinboine).   This rather odd shape would bisect both Winnipeg and Regina.   
• There is also an odd shape between the Plains Nations and the northern parts of "Wasteland".  Doesn't seem to follow the continental divide.  Almost looks like it stretches near yellowstone.  I may need to overlay another map to verify what this is.

Sorry for the long delay.

Not dead yet...

Just need a good topic for a new geography-related post.

Miraflores locks

This is a pic of the miraflores locks, one of two sets on the pacific side of the Panama Canal. .  
Butbmostly just a test blogbpost from my phone.

Capital Proximity

Offhand the closest two distinct national capitals I can think of are Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire) and Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo), which are located opposite each other on the banks of the Congo river. While the river has some breadth I expect the townships border each other. If you want to split hairs you could measure the distance from the capital building of each to get a distance.

So... anyway for the sake of this exercise... what are smallest distance between three national capitals? To define this we'll imagine a triangle connecting the three and take its... perimeter. I put it this way so if by some miracle three capitals are in a perfect line we don't get someone trying to say that triangle has zero area. Just add the distance from capital A to capital B, then B to C, then C back to A. That is your combined distance.

As part of this exercise we can repeat this with four capitals.. and five.. and so on.

But let's just focus on the 3, 4 and 5 for now. Some of them might be the same. I would imagine we'd be looking at smaller nations here, perhaps in carribean isles. I have not looked this up yet, am just posting it then hopefully will answer later. Since I'm getting almost no responses to things here I'll cross-post this in e-sam and maybe copy some of the replies back to here.

Geography Myths and Coiba

Way back in elementary school I remember the teacher (I think this was 4th or 5th grade) telling us that Maine was the northernmost state of the lower 48. I immediately disagreed, knowing well that this as Minnesota (thanks to the northwest angle), and that all the states of the 49th parallel with Canada extend farther north than Maine. She again disagreed, then proceeded to get a yardstick to show us on the wall map that it was indeed farther north. The map was not a Mercator where this would have been shown correctly.... I don't recall exactly but I think it was some type of Lambert Projection. I look in disbelief and muttered "you're not measuring it right"... and she kind of went "doh!" and then moved on without explaining about parallels or projections to the class.

But the myth persists. There are still people today who hold this misconception about Maine (which does hold the distinction of having the easternmost point in the United States, at the ironically named West Quoddy Head (it is west of Quoddy Strait between Maine and New Brunswick).

At any rate geography myths are everywhere, even to the point where some towns erroneously claim designations. Some are matters of semantics (i.e., various towns in the Tierra del Fuego region claim to be the world's southernmost town, but it depends on your definition of "town"). Others are just commonly perpetuated myths.

World's Shortest River?

Some friends in Texas told me of a Comal River near New Braunfels which locals proclaim to be the "shortest river in the world". It is around 3 miles long. This is nowhere close, a short investigation revealed a "D" River in Oregon which was measured at 440 feet. It flows out of a coastal lake into the Pacific. They advertised it as such and even put up signs proclaiming it as such. Then a Roe River in Montana was found that flowed some 200 feet from a spring into the Missouri River. Oregon countered by measuring their river at extreme high tide, which they claimed shortened the "D" River to 120 feet. And so on. At some point you have to argue what is a river... (and whether or not starting from a lake which has headstreams counts).

Coiba

Living in Panama I was long aware of its largest island, Coiba. Located in the Pacific off the Azuero peninsula, it was home of a feared prison colony under Noriega but otherwise undisturbed and is now a national park, where one can see Scarlet Macaws and other animals now rare on the mainland. At 503 square kilometers it is easily Panama's largest island... but locals claimed it held a greater distinction: that it was the largest island on the pacific coast of the Americas. As soon as I heard this I immediately knew it to be false... there are plenty of islands far larger on the pacific coasts of Canada (e.g., Vancouver at 31285 sq km) and Chile (e.g. Chiloé at 8394 sq km). But there is a long ways between these, so maybe it held the distinciton of largest between them.

South of Pugest Sound (which has Whidby and the Juan de Fuca islands) there aren't that many notable islands on the Pacific coast of the United States. There are a few notable small ones in San Fransisco Bay (e.g., Alcatraz)... but really the only serious archipelago is the Channel Islands of California. The largest of these is Santa Cruz, which is just under 250 sq km, which makes it about half the size of Coiba.

Moving south into Mexico there are a number of decent-sized islands, the largest being in the Gulf of California, one called Ángel de la Guarda and another called Tiburón. The former is sq 931 km and the latter is 1201 sq km. Both far larger than Coiba. So already we need to curtail the claim to "south of the Gulf of California".

Continuing on there is nothing to threaten it through the rest of Central America or Columbia until we get to Ecuador. Ecuador has the Galapagos Islands which are a fair distance from the coast. The largest island of the chain is Isla Isabela, at 4640 sq km, easily larger than Coiba. But even if you don't venture off the coast, there is Isla Puná, at 865 sq km, located in the Gulf of Guayaquil.

So the proper claim is that Coiba is the largest island on the pacific side of the Americas betwen the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Guayaquil. Or to make it simpler, just call it the largest Central American Island in the Pacific. Or just the largest Central American Island (the largest on the Carribean Coast I can find is Roatan, at around 90 sq km)... though Cozumel in the Yucatan is larger, but Mexico is not normally considered part of Central America.

European Capitals by Elevation

This was a fun dataset to compile. Not all cities listed had an official elevation... and many are obviously coastal, so their lowest elevation would be zero... I took standard wikipedia elevations where listed. Where not, the rest mostly comes from CIA factbook or various weather stations. A number of cities have quite a large range in elevation, I gave them benefit of the doubt and used the highest elevation within the city limits where I could. Anyway, some may be surprised to find Switzerland didn't top the list, but they aren't the only mountainous country, and it isn't that high up in the country. There are a few notes at the end....

anyway, our list:

Country	Capital	ft	meters
Liechtenstein	Vaduz	4898	1493
Luxembourg	Luxembourg	4327	1319
Andorra	Andorra la Vella	3356	1023
Armenia	Yerevan*	3246	989
Switzerland	Bern***	2834	864
Georgia	Tblisi*	2526	770
San Marino	San Marino	2457	749
Spain	Madrid	2188	667
Bulgaria	Sofia	1804	550
Austria	Vienna**	1778	542
Croatia	Zagreb	1699	518
Slovakia	Bratislava	1686	514
Bosnia-Herzegovinia	Sarajevo	1640	500
Czech Republic	Prague	1309	399
Greece	Athens	1109	338
Poland	Warsaw	1076	328
Slovenia	Ljubljana	968	295
Belarus	Minsk	920	280
Russia	Moscow****	837	255
Macedonia	Skopje	787	240
Ukraine	Kiev	587	179
Monaco	Monaco	535	163
Lithuania	Vilnius	410	125
Serbia	Belgrade	384	117
Germany	Berlin	377	115
Romania	Bucharest	295	90
Moldova	Chişinău	279	85
Hungary	Budapest	246	75
Vatican City	Vatican City	246	75
Latvia	Riga	240	73
Italy	Rome	217	66
Sweden	Stockholm	200	61
Portugal	Lisbon	184	56
Belgium	Brussels	141	43
Estonia	Talinn	131	40
France	Paris	115	35
Finland	Helsinki	85	26
United Kingdom	London	79	24
Norway	Oslo	62	19
Ireland	Dublin	30	9
Denmark	Copenhagen	16	5
Netherlands	Amsterdam	7	2
Azerbaijan	Baku*	-92	-28

It should be noted many of the lower elevations are coastal, and obviously descend down to sea level (or below it in the case of Baku, which might be the largest city below sea level in the world (easily larger than New Orleans... might be a topic for a future post). Anyway as mentioned tried to take an average elevation for even these coastal cities... but the differences are generally small, though some have impressive heights despite being right on the sea...

A few other notes:

* = debate on whether south causcus countries are considered European or Asian... even though some area of each country might cross the causcus, the capitals themselves primarily fall on the "asian" side. So disregard if you wish, including for completeness' sake... (the EU seems to consider them valid for membership anyway).
** - Vienna ranges from 151m to 542m
*** - Bern ranges from 480 - 864, average is 542.
**** Moscow weather station is 156m, 255m is highest area (Teplostanskaya Highland)

There are probably quite a few more that need notes, and I should have taken the time to list the source for each. Apologies. Still hope this is interesting. And one day maybe someone else will read some of this blog...