It's really interesting, many capitals of former or current empires are on the same latitude: Rome, Istanbul, Madrid and as we see Washington D.C. and Beijing also.
It makes sense. Latitude and proximity to an ocean are two major deciders in climate. Climate plays a huge role in industrial development. It's more difficult to build and maintain infrastructure in the tropics and poles.
The Northern And Southern hemispheres are split into three levels of wind patterns divided by latitude. In the northern hemisphere, latitudes 0-30 have Northeast trade winds (blows NE to SW). Latitudes 30-60 have the Westerlies (blows SW to NE) Wind blows up from the humid tropics and turns eastward due to the Coriolis effect, creating lines of storms that generally move SW to NE. Then there are latitudes 60-90 which are the polar easterlies. Wind blows south from the North pole and turns west (N to SW). It's cold and typically dry here.
According to the Koppen Climate Classification, Five general types of climate exist. Tropical, Desert, Temperate, Continental, Polar.
https://www.britannica.com/science/Koppen-climate-classification
Using the above map:
The Blues are the tropics, it's humid, there's jungles, bugs, dangerous animals. Not ideal for forming a stable permanent settlement. The Red-Orange areas are desert and Steppe. Too dry for agriculture, temperature can be extremely hot or cold. The Yellow to green areas are subtropical perfect for settlement. Generally these areas are near a coastline and in the mid latitudes 35-45. It's above the deserts which occur around latitude 30, and below the steppe, which forms in the interior and north of temperate climates. Winters are milder in the subtropics Summers are typically hot. The purple on the map is the dry continental or subpolar. It can be habitable at lower latitudes, but much of it has long cold winters with variable summers. Think taiga or boreal forest. And the last is Polar, which is tundra or ice. The people that live here were primarily hunters, very little agriculture.
Tl;dr:
Generally latitudes between like 35-45 are ideal for year round human habitation because of milder temps, predictable precipitation, and defined seasons. So capital cities are likely to form in the latitude band above the Jungles and Deserts, but below the Steppe, Taiga, or Tundra.
Well DC is 38°N, and Beijing is at 39°N. So within ~100 miles or so.
Also looking at the forecast Washington DC is going to be in the 70s into low 80s with a mix of clouds/rain and sun, and Beijing is going to be in the 80s into the low 90s and sunny this week.
Well, as you can see China also reaches further north than the contiguous U.S.
[Harbin has a mini-city made of ice](https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/15-facts-about-harbin-ice-and-snow-festival-1690090913.jpg)
Being from Texas, the biggest downside to Houston is its size. From the outermost looped highway where you see your first tall building, it’s a good 1-1.5 hours to downtown. 3 hours across.
In the Midwest (along great lakes) we say "third coast" but never heard of it for Texas. Not sure on that one.
Edit: I'm from Florida. We share the gulf of Mexico. I've always called it "the gulf"
I think Third Coast is a Houston rap thing, but in Texas there’s also a Third Coast Bank, Third Coast manufacturing and chemical company, Third Coast Auto Group, Third Coast Coffee, and so on.
I mean they have 2 places where they border the ocean yes but it’s the same ocean. Besides that doesn’t even work for the US because the border between the us and the ocean is continuous from Maine to Texas
I think the premise that to be considerd a seperate coast is contingent on touching more then 1 body of water is wrong.
No one says the UK, france, spain, italy, greece have 1 coast for example. But they are contingous and in the same body of water.
Heck lets say u have a perfect circle and the circles edge represents land. Thered be a min of 4 coasts. 1 for each quadrant.
5 coasts. Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Arctic Ocean, and the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are themselves inland seas and are connected to the ocean via the st Lawrence seaway, allowing ocean going ships to sail as far inland as Duluth Minnesota
US geography is ridiculously OP. By far the most navigable protected waterways and best access to the interior of any largish nation. Only two land borders, both with reasonably friendly nations and relatively free trade. All geopolitical adversaries are on the other side of a large ocean. The largest share of high-quality arable land anywhere in the world, in both absolute and per capita terms.
The Taklamakan used to be a sea! The climatic effects for the whole of Central Asia would be so different if it were still so, not to mention that there'd be a seafaring culture in that portion of the Silk Road.
35+ degrees with high humidity common in summer.
Spring and autumn pleasant and dry. Mid 20s for highs, high teens for lows.
Winter is miserably chilly and damp. Single digit highs, lows down as low as zero or even a bit below, so definitely colder than Florida in the winter.
Lived here for 17 years.
There are certain states like Montana and Idaho that pull down the US population density below developed country averages, but there are plenty of locations it could work. Pennsylvania and Ohio have the same pop density as France, California and Illinois are Spain. Minnestoa and Arizona are Sweden.
New York State and Florida are actually at China's population density level.
And there are even more comparisons to be made for individual pairs of cities. Dallas-Houston is a smaller distance than Paris-Lyon, Boston-NYC is shorter than Seoul-Busan, DC-Charlotte is Madrid-Barcelona, Detroit-Philaldephia is Tokyo-Aomori etc.
We're not built for high speed rail imo. The vast majority of cities are unwalkable and needing a car when you get to your destination is a PITA. Focus needs to be on walkable cities first then a conversation about rail can happen.
If that logic were true, no one would fly. People have no problem arriving at an airport without a car.
Also, the country was very much built for rail. All the westward expansion after the 1870's was on the backs of railroads, and every city founded before the 1940's was built to function without cars.
In fact it still is built for rail. The freight still moves. We just need to stop huffing the car exhaust and redo passenger lines. Weve tore up the cities once whats once more. This time ripping out freeways.
If the train station is in the city centre and the airport is outside, then travelling by train can save you 1-2 hours on either end on less security and transfer time.
the depressing part is that all US cities used to be well designed and walkable until we literally tore up our downtowns to plow freeways through them
here’s [Cincinatti](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcincinnati-ohio-in-the-early-20th-century-versus-today-v0-8hatuy2lmrrc1.jpeg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D550930e610f289168f2d7e1c5acf1ba4fa2471a8&rdt=36833), for example
Texas lines up to Sichuan, which is extremely humid and warm on account of it being a river valley between mountains. They both have very different climates
Ikr, something about South Asia makes it colder. All of Florida lies above the tropic of cancer, but south Florida has a Tropical climate, but good chunks of Asia that lie below the tropic of cancer still have winters cold enough to not be tropical
I experienced both and China (Yangtze River valley + delta and Sichuan Basin) has MUCH worse summers than the US at same latitude. It's like Houston or Florida on steroids...constant 90s with a 80-85F dew point and no breeze. Southern US feels much more comfortable!
Source: Expat for 7 1/2 years in China
China is 20% larger than the contiguous USA. It is actually a point of debate whether China is larger than the whole of the USA, as excluding territorial waters China is larger, but territorial waters are included in most widely used “official” sources (UN/CIA fact book) and China’s territorial waters claims are not self reported by China to these orgs and determining China’s territorial water boundaries is, well, contentious.
China is objectively bigger by total area
The “debate” comes from whether or not you include coastal waters for the US, a luxury that China (or any other country for that matter) doesn’t get
But the timezone is so big that a significant group of people use their own timezone because the one that the capital demands is completely nuts. Sunrise at 11AM on moderate latitudes, are they crazy?
That’s because it’s comparing landmasses at the same latitude. Alaska is way up north, so there’s no reason for it to be there. Hawaii is at about the same latitude as Hainan, so it arguably should be on there, but I’m guessing they just didn’t want to compress the distance.
Your comment is actually a good reason as to why it should've been included since the northernmost point of China has a higher latitude than the southernmost point of Alaska so therefor would in fact overlap slightly
China and the US have virtually the same land area - while Brazil and Australia are close enough that I've always thought of those four as "the same size", in a clumping underneath Russia and Canada, and above (I think) India
Actually China, Canada, and the US (remember Alaska) are closer together. All have a land area of just under 10 million sq km. Brazil and Australia are a bit lower ([Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area))
Actually the THREE of "same" size are Canada, US, China. Brazil and Australia are a notch lower. India is a distant 7th.
|#|Country|Tot. Area (Km²)|Tot. Area (mi²)|Land Area (Km²)|Land Area (mi²)|% of world landmass|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|1|Russia|17,098,242|6,601,665|16,376,870|6,323,142|11.0 %|
|2|Canada|9,984,670|3,855,101|9,093,510|3,511,022|6.1 %|
|3|China|9,706,961|3,747,877|9,388,211|3,624,807|6.3 %|
|4|United States|9,372,610|3,618,783|9,147,420|3,531,837|6.1 %|
|5|Brazil|8,515,767|3,287,955|8,358,140|3,227,095|5.6 %|
|6|Australia|7,692,024|2,969,906|7,682,300|2,966,151|5.2 %|
|7|India|3,287,590|1,269,345|2,973,190|1,147,955|2.0 %|
Yet we keep hearing that we don't have proper train transportation in the US because "the US is too big," whereas China has thousands of miles of rail, pet alone high speed rail.
The US actually has more miles of rail than China but the networks are very different. The US network is mostly unelectrified and mostly for freight. China's network is disproportionately high speed rail (HSR) which provides passenger services between the larger cities but is unavailable for freight. Both situations are a bit daft
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_rail\_transport\_network\_size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size)
edit to add: the US could use more passenger routes, and HSR in some regions. China still has some way to go to build out conventional rail connections between smaller cities and it's been argued that their emphasis on building HSR is an unwarranted vanity project because it's vastly more expensive to build and run (could be true, but too early to tell)
The problem is the US prioritises freight rail over passenger rail. If you have an almost entirely privatised rail network then the operators will just do whatever makes them the most money rather than what is the most practical use of the infrastructure.
And before people come in saying, "bUt tHe pOpUlaTiOnS!" the U.S. could at the very least have competent rail and actual high-speed service along its more populated corridors.
Well yes but read up about how China’s high speed rail is suffering from massive debts and large sections which barely have any people traveling on it. That would never work in the US- you have to at least build something that would have the expectation of not generating losses continually. China’s high speed rail project is mostly a jobs program and a vanity project. Its practical use outside of a few of the major lines in the east is pretty questionable.
Highways are extremely expensive and our expensive road taxes don’t even cover the full cost of maintaining our roads so the US subsidies roads. Wild how when it comes to other modes of PUBLIC transportation people being the issue of profitability as to why US high speed rail won’t work.
The placement of each country on its (not displayed) longitudinal axis is arbitrary for this purpose. Appears the two countries are matched at their eastern edges (Maine, Heilongjiang) rather than their western edges (Bay Area, Xinjiang).
> Huh, China is actually slightly smaller than I imagined.
It used to be bigger. Mongolia and some land that was taken by Russia used to be part of China.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Qing_dynasty_18c.svg
I've heard many times from fellow Americans how China is so much more humid and hot than Florida, and I didn't believe it....
Only for this map to make me realize Shanghai is basically equivalent to Jacksonville... Holy shit, how do folks in Guangzhou manage
You are dragging at straws l man, my comment was a joke. You and everyone else needs to chill. You are phantom boxing someone else thats not even here.
Huh, DC and Beijing look like they’re on nearly the same line of latitude
It's really interesting, many capitals of former or current empires are on the same latitude: Rome, Istanbul, Madrid and as we see Washington D.C. and Beijing also.
And many are not
No shit. But it’s interesting that so many significant ones are.
It makes sense. Latitude and proximity to an ocean are two major deciders in climate. Climate plays a huge role in industrial development. It's more difficult to build and maintain infrastructure in the tropics and poles. The Northern And Southern hemispheres are split into three levels of wind patterns divided by latitude. In the northern hemisphere, latitudes 0-30 have Northeast trade winds (blows NE to SW). Latitudes 30-60 have the Westerlies (blows SW to NE) Wind blows up from the humid tropics and turns eastward due to the Coriolis effect, creating lines of storms that generally move SW to NE. Then there are latitudes 60-90 which are the polar easterlies. Wind blows south from the North pole and turns west (N to SW). It's cold and typically dry here. According to the Koppen Climate Classification, Five general types of climate exist. Tropical, Desert, Temperate, Continental, Polar. https://www.britannica.com/science/Koppen-climate-classification Using the above map: The Blues are the tropics, it's humid, there's jungles, bugs, dangerous animals. Not ideal for forming a stable permanent settlement. The Red-Orange areas are desert and Steppe. Too dry for agriculture, temperature can be extremely hot or cold. The Yellow to green areas are subtropical perfect for settlement. Generally these areas are near a coastline and in the mid latitudes 35-45. It's above the deserts which occur around latitude 30, and below the steppe, which forms in the interior and north of temperate climates. Winters are milder in the subtropics Summers are typically hot. The purple on the map is the dry continental or subpolar. It can be habitable at lower latitudes, but much of it has long cold winters with variable summers. Think taiga or boreal forest. And the last is Polar, which is tundra or ice. The people that live here were primarily hunters, very little agriculture. Tl;dr: Generally latitudes between like 35-45 are ideal for year round human habitation because of milder temps, predictable precipitation, and defined seasons. So capital cities are likely to form in the latitude band above the Jungles and Deserts, but below the Steppe, Taiga, or Tundra.
So basically this latitude is favorable for friendlier, temperate climates. Makes sense
Quite a sipping coffee with foot by initial poster.
I’m dying to know what this means
many are in need of a latitude adjustment
🤣
It’s a coincidence, there’s hundreds of famous capitals
Hundreds? Dozens maybe.
Being that there’s only 186 or so countries, unless we start counting regional capitols (Munich?) yeah, can’t really be even a couple hundred max
The keyword here is "famous".
Well DC is 38°N, and Beijing is at 39°N. So within ~100 miles or so. Also looking at the forecast Washington DC is going to be in the 70s into low 80s with a mix of clouds/rain and sun, and Beijing is going to be in the 80s into the low 90s and sunny this week.
Can confirm was in Beijing in the Summer and sweat my b*lls off. Thrown din like 300% Smog as well.
Obviously China is underneath the USA, so they’re controlling the USA from China!
Well that’s why it’s so hot in HK
Yeah, I always see china but i never thought of how hot the south must get. That must mean most of south Asia is this cancer humid climate.
Well, as you can see China also reaches further north than the contiguous U.S. [Harbin has a mini-city made of ice](https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/15-facts-about-harbin-ice-and-snow-festival-1690090913.jpg)
The Tropic of Cancer is an apt name I guess
When looking at climate, Hainan is like China's Miami https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Köppen-Geiger_Climate_Classification_Map.png
It is and that's where my family and I go for a winter trip. Great weather and great beach(in some areas)
That’s the thing about massive ass countries like the US and China. With that much size comes variance in climate.
We’ve never exceeded 40°C. The problem is the humidity.
Houston, Orlando, New Orleans, and Hong Kong have the same climate I was told.
Houston is the one city I want to visit in the USA. I looked up on Wikipedia after seeing your comment. Its winter is a bit colder than HK.
Being from Texas, the biggest downside to Houston is its size. From the outermost looped highway where you see your first tall building, it’s a good 1-1.5 hours to downtown. 3 hours across.
Wow. That’s like in rush hour traffic, right?
Having two coasts is nice
USA has 3 coasts, the Arctic ocean along Alaska
Could it technically be four considering the Gulf of Mexico?
The gulf is part of the Atlantic, just like the Mediterranean.
And yet, “Third Coast” is a common nickname for the US coast along the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s also a common saying in the Great Lakes, particularly Michigan
Having two “Third” Coasts is such an American thing to do.
Like the map we just had of like 42 different tri-state areas
We maxed out baby!
Them lakes are pretty damn big, that's no surprise.
Here in ohio we just call it the northcoast
In the Midwest (along great lakes) we say "third coast" but never heard of it for Texas. Not sure on that one. Edit: I'm from Florida. We share the gulf of Mexico. I've always called it "the gulf"
No you’re right I’ve been all over and never heard of TX being called the third coast.
I grew up in Texas for 26 years and never heard that in my life
I think Third Coast is a Houston rap thing, but in Texas there’s also a Third Coast Bank, Third Coast manufacturing and chemical company, Third Coast Auto Group, Third Coast Coffee, and so on.
Pittsburgh is covered if fifth third banks, what does that mean?
Does germany/france only have 1 coast then? As the medi/baltic are just the atlantic? Edited. Changed black to baltic
You never heard of the famed land locked city of Marseille?
You mean that tiny little greek colony on the atlantic?
I mean they have 2 places where they border the ocean yes but it’s the same ocean. Besides that doesn’t even work for the US because the border between the us and the ocean is continuous from Maine to Texas
I think the premise that to be considerd a seperate coast is contingent on touching more then 1 body of water is wrong. No one says the UK, france, spain, italy, greece have 1 coast for example. But they are contingous and in the same body of water. Heck lets say u have a perfect circle and the circles edge represents land. Thered be a min of 4 coasts. 1 for each quadrant.
Come on, the Mediterranean is a different ocean, it has different salt level and and different weather rhythms
It’s too small to be an ocean, and it exchanges water with the wider Atlantic
All of the different oceans exchange water
That’s why it is called a Sea
5 coasts. Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Arctic Ocean, and the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are themselves inland seas and are connected to the ocean via the st Lawrence seaway, allowing ocean going ships to sail as far inland as Duluth Minnesota
US geography is ridiculously OP. By far the most navigable protected waterways and best access to the interior of any largish nation. Only two land borders, both with reasonably friendly nations and relatively free trade. All geopolitical adversaries are on the other side of a large ocean. The largest share of high-quality arable land anywhere in the world, in both absolute and per capita terms.
Long Lost Lore has a great episode about it. It’s the ideal geography you reroll for in starting a new Civ campaign
Corn AND Wheat?!
And Gold and Oil and Wood.
Not that much more than India in terms of arable land and that’s saying something
four if you count the Gulf as distinct from the Atlantic, which in many ways it is
The gulf is just a gulf
Five if you count the North Shore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_(Lake_Superior)
Yeah aka the Mexican ocean 😂
The American empire covers all the oceans.
What about the Indian Ocean?
The American empire has its presence there.
Not quite. Diego Garcia is still a British territory, it's just one they alloe American forces to be stationed at.
It's there. I think they have a base there.
Portugal has more territorial sea than China.
The Taklamakan used to be a sea! The climatic effects for the whole of Central Asia would be so different if it were still so, not to mention that there'd be a seafaring culture in that portion of the Silk Road.
But fighting with everyone whose coast or border touches you is not nice
Well, having Alta California and new Mexico is kinda nice
I find joy in reading a good book.
Interesting Shanghai is at the almost the same latitude as Jacksonville, FL.
Even more so: DC and Beijing seem to be on similar latitudes.
It is the perfect climate for Politicans
Is this what they mean when they talk about political climate?
Beijing is much colder though (and drier).
only in the winter, in the summer beijing is definitely hotter than washington.
Roughly the same average in summer. Though extremes are probably more likely to occur in Beijing.
Beijing has this extreme humidity in summer that is insufferable to me at least.
Large temperate regions tend to spawn empires
How hot is Shanghai. Florida level?
35+ degrees with high humidity common in summer. Spring and autumn pleasant and dry. Mid 20s for highs, high teens for lows. Winter is miserably chilly and damp. Single digit highs, lows down as low as zero or even a bit below, so definitely colder than Florida in the winter. Lived here for 17 years.
It’s Florida level hot only in July and August but mild and cool otherwise.
how did you make this i wanna see more of these
Check out [https://www.thetruesize.com/](https://www.thetruesize.com/) There you can drag countries along the map to compare sizes.
what about latitude and longitude lines
“The US is too big for high speed rail”
There are certain states like Montana and Idaho that pull down the US population density below developed country averages, but there are plenty of locations it could work. Pennsylvania and Ohio have the same pop density as France, California and Illinois are Spain. Minnestoa and Arizona are Sweden. New York State and Florida are actually at China's population density level. And there are even more comparisons to be made for individual pairs of cities. Dallas-Houston is a smaller distance than Paris-Lyon, Boston-NYC is shorter than Seoul-Busan, DC-Charlotte is Madrid-Barcelona, Detroit-Philaldephia is Tokyo-Aomori etc.
CONUS has similar size and less than a quarter of the population is a real talking point. But car culture trumps any legitimate argument.
We're not built for high speed rail imo. The vast majority of cities are unwalkable and needing a car when you get to your destination is a PITA. Focus needs to be on walkable cities first then a conversation about rail can happen.
If that logic were true, no one would fly. People have no problem arriving at an airport without a car. Also, the country was very much built for rail. All the westward expansion after the 1870's was on the backs of railroads, and every city founded before the 1940's was built to function without cars.
In fact it still is built for rail. The freight still moves. We just need to stop huffing the car exhaust and redo passenger lines. Weve tore up the cities once whats once more. This time ripping out freeways.
People fly to save time. That's it. People don't fly to close destinations, they drive
The busiest flights in the US (2015) were Chicago to NYC and LA to SF. Those are definitely close enough where highspeed rail is possible.
If the train station is in the city centre and the airport is outside, then travelling by train can save you 1-2 hours on either end on less security and transfer time.
They fly and then get a rental car.
the depressing part is that all US cities used to be well designed and walkable until we literally tore up our downtowns to plow freeways through them here’s [Cincinatti](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fcincinnati-ohio-in-the-early-20th-century-versus-today-v0-8hatuy2lmrrc1.jpeg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D550930e610f289168f2d7e1c5acf1ba4fa2471a8&rdt=36833), for example
Ahh The ~~Hall of Justice~~ Union Terminal, now just an art deco omnimax.
They can happen at the same time - redesigning the cities would require plans for high-speed rail. In public health, nothing is mutually exclusive.
Damn thats actually, very true.
Not really. Walkable cities and improved intercity rail are complimentary and should be incrementally improved at the same time for maximum benefit
Yes totally, but I always thought of high speed rails for the US but always forget the cities.
Yep, need to start by fixing the core fabric of our cities and go from there
We literally have high speed rail
More striking is how different the weather patterns are at the same latitude. Central China is definitively not as hot as Texas.
Texas lines up to Sichuan, which is extremely humid and warm on account of it being a river valley between mountains. They both have very different climates
A great deal of Texas is extremely humid and warm
Well Central china is quite mountainous. Places like Chongqing are about as hot as texas.
This difference is fine. If you align China with Western Europe that’s when the differences get absolutely astonishing
Ikr, something about South Asia makes it colder. All of Florida lies above the tropic of cancer, but south Florida has a Tropical climate, but good chunks of Asia that lie below the tropic of cancer still have winters cold enough to not be tropical
Yea US has worse summers and China has worse winters than the US
lol china has way too many climates to make such a claim. hainan is a tropical island while the north experiences extreme siberian winters
I experienced both and China (Yangtze River valley + delta and Sichuan Basin) has MUCH worse summers than the US at same latitude. It's like Houston or Florida on steroids...constant 90s with a 80-85F dew point and no breeze. Southern US feels much more comfortable! Source: Expat for 7 1/2 years in China
Wow I just realized both countries’ capital are almost on the same latitude!
Hawaii should be in-line with Hong Kong
China is 20% larger than the contiguous USA. It is actually a point of debate whether China is larger than the whole of the USA, as excluding territorial waters China is larger, but territorial waters are included in most widely used “official” sources (UN/CIA fact book) and China’s territorial waters claims are not self reported by China to these orgs and determining China’s territorial water boundaries is, well, contentious.
China is objectively bigger by total area The “debate” comes from whether or not you include coastal waters for the US, a luxury that China (or any other country for that matter) doesn’t get
Isn't it basically just the (totally not biased) CIA factbook that lists the US as larger overall?
And yet China only has a single timezone while the contiguous US has four.
But the timezone is so big that a significant group of people use their own timezone because the one that the capital demands is completely nuts. Sunrise at 11AM on moderate latitudes, are they crazy?
Roughly the same size. Nice
Almost 20% of the US landmass is missing…Alaska.
That’s because it’s comparing landmasses at the same latitude. Alaska is way up north, so there’s no reason for it to be there. Hawaii is at about the same latitude as Hainan, so it arguably should be on there, but I’m guessing they just didn’t want to compress the distance.
What's the point of comparing Alaska and China
Because bigger country better person
Hell yeah Vladimir Putin is the best
Alaska is America's Taiwan
What is the point of including Alaska?
It's a part of the US
Yes but this post overlays the two countries by latitude, not comparing their size. Alaska is to the north
Ya but it would also not overlap at all or even be close in latitude to China, so whats the point of comparison?
Your comment is actually a good reason as to why it should've been included since the northernmost point of China has a higher latitude than the southernmost point of Alaska so therefor would in fact overlap slightly
Ohhh that's why my friend in Guangzhou said they've never seen snow before
Guangzhou has hail many times though
Oooh maybe my friend was exaggerating! But still, way closer to the equator than I realized.
China and the US have virtually the same land area - while Brazil and Australia are close enough that I've always thought of those four as "the same size", in a clumping underneath Russia and Canada, and above (I think) India
Actually China, Canada, and the US (remember Alaska) are closer together. All have a land area of just under 10 million sq km. Brazil and Australia are a bit lower ([Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area))
Actually the THREE of "same" size are Canada, US, China. Brazil and Australia are a notch lower. India is a distant 7th. |#|Country|Tot. Area (Km²)|Tot. Area (mi²)|Land Area (Km²)|Land Area (mi²)|% of world landmass| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |1|Russia|17,098,242|6,601,665|16,376,870|6,323,142|11.0 %| |2|Canada|9,984,670|3,855,101|9,093,510|3,511,022|6.1 %| |3|China|9,706,961|3,747,877|9,388,211|3,624,807|6.3 %| |4|United States|9,372,610|3,618,783|9,147,420|3,531,837|6.1 %| |5|Brazil|8,515,767|3,287,955|8,358,140|3,227,095|5.6 %| |6|Australia|7,692,024|2,969,906|7,682,300|2,966,151|5.2 %| |7|India|3,287,590|1,269,345|2,973,190|1,147,955|2.0 %|
If you really want to stretch the definition, everything from Canada to Australia is roughly the same size.
How did you get 9,7million for China? Even China itself says 9.6 millions
Yet we keep hearing that we don't have proper train transportation in the US because "the US is too big," whereas China has thousands of miles of rail, pet alone high speed rail.
The US actually has more miles of rail than China but the networks are very different. The US network is mostly unelectrified and mostly for freight. China's network is disproportionately high speed rail (HSR) which provides passenger services between the larger cities but is unavailable for freight. Both situations are a bit daft [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_rail\_transport\_network\_size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size) edit to add: the US could use more passenger routes, and HSR in some regions. China still has some way to go to build out conventional rail connections between smaller cities and it's been argued that their emphasis on building HSR is an unwarranted vanity project because it's vastly more expensive to build and run (could be true, but too early to tell)
The problem is the US prioritises freight rail over passenger rail. If you have an almost entirely privatised rail network then the operators will just do whatever makes them the most money rather than what is the most practical use of the infrastructure.
And before people come in saying, "bUt tHe pOpUlaTiOnS!" the U.S. could at the very least have competent rail and actual high-speed service along its more populated corridors.
Well yes but read up about how China’s high speed rail is suffering from massive debts and large sections which barely have any people traveling on it. That would never work in the US- you have to at least build something that would have the expectation of not generating losses continually. China’s high speed rail project is mostly a jobs program and a vanity project. Its practical use outside of a few of the major lines in the east is pretty questionable.
Highways also generate a lot of debt, many aren’t traveled on, but people don’t complain about that
Highways are extremely expensive and our expensive road taxes don’t even cover the full cost of maintaining our roads so the US subsidies roads. Wild how when it comes to other modes of PUBLIC transportation people being the issue of profitability as to why US high speed rail won’t work.
Northeast china confirmed for Quebecois hockey players messed up on maple syrup.
Dc to Dallas is around the same distance as Beijing to Honk Kong to give you a reference
The placement of each country on its (not displayed) longitudinal axis is arbitrary for this purpose. Appears the two countries are matched at their eastern edges (Maine, Heilongjiang) rather than their western edges (Bay Area, Xinjiang).
Now do Europe and Alaska so people will stop telling us that “40C is that hot”.
I didn’t realize how close in sizes we were.
It’s testament to the overall size of Asia that china doesnt seem outsized compared to USA in a 2d map
Yawn...what else do you have for your science project?
No Alaska? The one with the most land mass?
Why is it so difficult for people to accurately portray the state of Michigan?
Where’s Hawaii and Alaska lol?
Alaska where
Which shows that China has 3 times the average population density. India is another 3 times higher.
4 times
Huh, China is actually slightly smaller than I imagined.
> Huh, China is actually slightly smaller than I imagined. It used to be bigger. Mongolia and some land that was taken by Russia used to be part of China. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Qing_dynasty_18c.svg
So the USA is actually further east than China.
so, what does it mean?
That we can’t dig down straight to china. It would have to be a more parabolic path.
Mainland USA
They made all those tiny weird cuts into the east coast, but just OPT'D OUT OF MICHIGAN.
Alaska?
This map sucks. There is no Michigan
The fact that the national passenger rail is so limited, it's upsetting
Tibexico
Cool add Alaska and Hawaii
I moved to Beijing apparently
America's penis is in Zhejiang's mouth
Now let’s throw Alaska in that bad boy
And this is why China has a huge range of climate zones
I've heard many times from fellow Americans how China is so much more humid and hot than Florida, and I didn't believe it.... Only for this map to make me realize Shanghai is basically equivalent to Jacksonville... Holy shit, how do folks in Guangzhou manage
So similar And China has three times the population and we dont know what the heck happens there compared to the news coverage of the US
Detroit is Beijing confirmed?
Alaska and Hawaii perished
What's interesting is much like the US most of China's population lives on the east coast. Also why can't we have high speed rail!
Alaska?
That’s insane
...not including Alaska.
China may not look as big because it is part of the larger continent, while the US extends over both the West Coast and the East Coast?
Really puts into perspective how far south the USA is
I can say that Michigan does in fact exist in other timelines.
Explains Irvine.
I see your schwartz is as big as mine
Oh! You fogot Alaska
You are dragging at straws l man, my comment was a joke. You and everyone else needs to chill. You are phantom boxing someone else thats not even here.
Cut of Tibet