“Embarrassed To Be American”: 83 Times People Were Completely Clueless About The World They Live In

From the sunny beaches of Spain to the icy landscapes of Antarctica, our planet is packed with places that feel almost unbelievable. Every corner of the world has something fascinating hiding in it, whether it’s a record-breaking natural wonder or a strange little fact you probably never learned in school.

Take Canada, for example. The country is home to more lakes than anywhere else on Earth. An analysis from the HydroLAKES database estimates that Canada has roughly 879,800 lakes. Many of the world’s lakes are found in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in regions like Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska, and Canada. But Canada alone holds a huge portion of them. That means a massive amount of the world’s freshwater is sitting inside one country. It’s the kind of fact that makes you look at a world map very differently.

Despite how important lakes are, scientists realized we actually don’t know as much about them as we probably should. Lakes influence ecosystems, wildlife, climate, and even how water moves around the planet. That’s why researchers have spent years trying to understand them better.

One of those scientists is Bernhard Lehner, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University. He helped create a massive global database that maps lakes across the planet. The goal was to give researchers a better way to study how lakes function in Earth’s ecology. With clearer data, scientists can track water resources, environmental changes, and even climate patterns. In other words, lakes aren’t just pretty vacation spots; they’re crucial pieces of the planet’s natural systems.

Lehner’s project looked at lakes around the world that are 10 hectares or larger, which is already a huge number. In total, the database includes about 1.42 million lakes. Researchers didn’t just count them; they also estimated their depth and the amount of water they hold. When the numbers came back, one country stood out in a big way.

Canada turned out to contain about 62 percent of the lakes studied in the dataset. That’s a staggering share of the planet’s major lakes. Writing about the research in a piece for CBC, Lehner explained just how vital these bodies of water are. “You need to appreciate how important they are in the whole water cycle,” he said. “In Canada, there’s no water cycle without them, really.”

Moving south, another massive water system dominates the landscape of North America: the Mississippi River. It’s the third-largest watershed in the world and one of the most important river systems in the United States. The river and its surrounding habitats are home to an incredible range of wildlife. Scientists have recorded 360 species of fish, 326 species of birds, 145 species of amphibians, and around 50 species of mammals living in the basin. The Mississippi also has a pretty impressive journey. From its source in northern Minnesota all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, the river drops about 1,475 feet in elevation. And if a single drop of water begins that trip, it takes roughly 90 days to travel the entire length of the river.

Then there’s Greenland, a place that proves geography can get surprisingly complicated. If someone asks what time it is there, the answer isn’t so simple. Greenland actually operates across four different time zones. Most of the island sits three hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. But the town of Ittoqqortoormiit, on the eastern coast, sets its clocks two hours earlier than that. Meanwhile, the American Thule Air Base at Pituffik in the northwest follows a different schedule altogether. There’s even an unofficial fourth time used at Danmarkshavn, a remote research station in the northeast. It stays in sync with Iceland because that’s where most of its supplies arrive from. For one island, that’s a lot of clocks to keep track of.

When it comes to extreme weather, Earth doesn’t hold back either. The coldest temperature ever recorded on the planet happened in Antarctica, where scientists measured a staggering −89.2°C (−128.56°F). That kind of cold is hard to even imagine; breathing outside for long periods would be incredibly dangerous.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the hottest temperature ever recorded took place in Death Valley, California. Thermometers there reached an intense 56.7°C (134.06°F). It’s one of the hottest places on Earth and often feels like stepping into a giant oven. These two records show just how wildly different the planet’s environments can be. In a single world, temperatures can swing from brutally freezing to scorching hot.