Travel & Destinations

The Biggest Waterfall in The World

Angel Falls, Venezuela is considered to be the biggest waterfall in the world. To be more precise, it is the tallest waterfall on Earth, with the height of some 980 meters and 47 drops.

Being so, it is a main attraction for the tourists who come to Venezuela. But visiting this waterfall is not so simple thing to do. The Angel Falls waterfall is situated in a jungle, so first there is a flight, and then there is a river trip. And aside all that, you can not be sure you will be able to see the waterfall – in fact, you can only see it if the weather is clear.

The second famous waterfall is Victoria Falls. It was named after Queen Victoria, by David Livingstone, an explorer from Scotland, but the name “Mosi-oa-Tunya” is also accepted. Unlike Angel Falls, Victoria Falls are more accessible and easier for physical approach, so it is no wonder that there are so many tourists and visitors.

During the late 1990s, the number of visitors was about 290,000 annually. According to estimation for the following decade, the number was to reach a million. It is quite logical, because people do not have to bother too much to reach the falls – they can arrive by train or bus. The trip to Victoria Falls is not too expensive, so it is one more reason for such numerous visits.

The amazing falls are not the only natural beauty and attraction here. Its wildlife is equally amazing. There are elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, zebras, baboons etc. Crocodiles are commonly seen as well. Bird species are numerous, and so as fish.

If you want to experience an adventure, then you should definitely go visit one of these waterfalls. There are many and many returning visitors, who are enchanted by these natural wonders.

The Biggest Volcano in The World

The biggest volcano in the world is located in Hawaiian Islands, USA. It is called Mauna Loa, which means in Hawaiian “Long Mountain”. It is the biggest volcano in the world compared with other volcanoes in terms of area and volume.

It is one of five volcanoes that are responsible for creation of Hawaiian Islands. It is 4.170 meters above the sea level, but the base of the volcano is at the bottom of the sea and measured from the bottom to the top the volcano itself is more than 17.000 meters high. It’s a shield volcano with very gently sloping sides.

The reason for this is its lava which is poor in silica content and it makes it very fluid. Thus it’s not prone to violent bursts, but usual volcanic activity is followed by lava fountains which are then turned into lava flow.

Hawaiian Islands are situated on the edge of Pacific tectonic plate, which is actually a hot spot for seismic activities such as volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes. Since the tectonic plates are moving, Hawaiian Islands are drifting away from the hot spot, which means that eventually Mauna Loa will stop being an active volcano.

This will happen in about 500.000 to 1.000.000 years from now. But, there is a great possibility of new island rising in the hot spot which will then be added to the existing chain. Most promising is Lo’ihi. It is a submerged volcano south of the Big Island.

One day, Lo’ihi could probably become a new island. Mauna Loa is a very active volcano with 33 recorded eruptions since 1843. Most recent eruption was in the period March and April 1984.

The Biggest Aquarium in The World

Georgia Aquarium is the world’s biggest aquarium. It located in Atlanta, Georgia. It has more than 31.000 cubic meters of water and is covering the area of 81000 m2.

It is a home for many species: there are at least 100.000 animals covering over more than 500 different species. There are 2.000 active volunteers and they have served there for 325.000 working hours in total. Most famous animals in the aquarium are four whale-sharks named Alice, Trixie, Norton and Ralph. (Ralph died from peritonitis in January 2007. Norton also died soon after.) These animals eat more than 5.400 kg of food per year.

These sharks are kept in a pool containing more than 24.000 m3 of water. Actually, the whole complex was built around the shark aquarium. It also holds hammerhead sharks, 5 beluga whales and two manta rays which are kind of celebrities here.

The aquarium is one of six United States Aquariums which have beluga whales. Manta ray named Nandi is originally from Durban, South Africa. Beluga whales are named Natasha, Maris, Nico, Gasper and Marina. In 2007 Gasper was euthanized because he suffered from bone disease and skin problems. Beluga whales consume more than 11.000 kg of food per year. There are five different galleries: River Scout, Cold Water Quest, Georgia Explorer, Ocean Voyager and Tropical Diver. Of its facilities: over 5.1 ha over covered space. It is the biggest aquarium in the world ever since November 2005, when it was opened for the first time.

Some of the interesting facts are that there is enough water in Georgia Aquarium to fill 88 million cans of soda. The capacity of the air-conditioning system is enough for 1200 average homes in America. Since the opening, aquarium staff and volunteers have spent 40.000 hours underwater.

The Biggest Desert in The World

If looking for the biggest desert in the world, you might be surprised by the result. You probably first thought that Sahara occupies the top position, but in that case you’re wrong!

Let’s start from precise definition of a desert, which says it is a surface which gets very little rainfall (not more than 260 mm during the whole year). A bit over one third of the Earth’s landscape belongs to desert areas.

The biggest desert in the world is actually Antarctica. It is classified as desert because it does not get more than two inches or 5 centimeters of precipitation a year. This polar desert is 55.4 million square miles or 14 million square kilometers big. The second place when measuring desert surfaces on Earth belongs to another polar desert – Arctic.

It spreads over Russia, Greenland, Alaska, Iceland and Canada. Finally, position number three on the biggest desert list goes to non-polar desert Sahara in northern Africa. Its surface stretches over 9 million square kilometers (or 3.6 million square miles) which is just a bit less than the size of the Unites States of America.

Sahara desert’s territory occupies the area from Mauritania to Egypt and Sudan. Unlike the first two (Antarctic and Arctic), Sahara is subtropical type of desert. Now you may ask: “OK, why do people believe that Sahara is the biggest desert in the world?” Well, you see, not everyone know that polar deserts exist as well. The main difference between polar and tropical deserts is that in tropical deserts the evaporation rate is greater than precipitation rate. At polar deserts it is quite the opposite.

Other deserts falling into the group of the biggest deserts in the world are the

Arabian, Gobi, Kalahari, the Patagonian Desert, Great Victoria, Syrian and many others.

Interesting fact to know is that the biggest known deset in our solar system is the area of planet Venus.

The Biggest River in The World

Do you know what the biggest river in the world is?  There are several different approaches to this question.

The Amazon, enormously big river in South America, is a number one candidate for the biggest river in the world. According to the amount of water which flows through, the Amazon deserves to be ranked number one. Around 122 thousand cubic meters/almost 8 million cubic feet flow in every second. When you summarize this, it means that the Amazon’s total water flow is bigger than the next 10 largest ranked rivers all together.

The Amazon is often called The River Sea, due to its great dimensions. It is because in wet season one part of it may grow to 2 hundred kilometers or 130 miles in width.

One of the interesting facts about the Amazon  is that there aren’t any bridges on it! The reason for this is the Amazon’s magnificent width. The engineering technology is simply not capable to make that idea come into reality. Additional reason is that the environment through which this river flows is a home of many wild and tropical rain forest animal species.

If we classify rivers according to the amount of water, then the Amazon can be considered the biggest. But there is another classification which takes the length to be the main parameter. If measured this way, when it comes to length the winner would be the River Nile in the continent of Africa. If we measure the Nile from its source Burundi to delta on the Mediterranean Sea, it is almost 7 thousand kilometers long.

The Nile consists of two great tributaries – the White and the Blue Nile. This river had a great role in the development of ancient Egyptian civilization and remains equally important even today. The best way to know more about the Nile is to visit it. It is affordable and the tours are well organized. You will enjoy it.

The Biggest City in The World

Whether you are planning a trip or just want to find out some interesting statistics, you will see that looking for the biggest city in the world isn’t an easy task at all.

There are several standards according to which ‘the biggest city’ ranks are made. First one is the number of population, so let’s see what the most populous cities on our planet are. The first city to be known for its big citizen number is Shanghai with almost 14 million people. This city is located in the east of China. Right after this one there is Mumbai in India with only around 2 thousand citizens less than Shanghai.

An interesting fact when comparing these two cities is that Shanghai has 7000 and Mumbai 22 thousand people per square kilometer! Other cities which can be proud of their citizens’ total number are Karachi (Pakistan), Delhi (India), Istanbul (Turkey), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Moscow (Russia), Seoul (South Korea) and Beijing (China). All of these cities have 10 or more million people living in them.

Besides ranking according to population, another way of measuring is by population of metropolitan area. According to this, Tokyo (Japan) has 32 and a half million people within a bit over 8 thousand square kilometers area. Two cities that have just over 20 million citizens are Seoul (South Korea) and Mexico City (Mexico).

Another parameter for ranking big cities is population density. That means taking average number of people who live on one square mile. In this case, Manila (Philippines) is in the first place. In Manila there are more than 43 thousand people living on a single square kilometer, even though the city itself has over 1.650.000 citizens in it. Next positions on the list are occupied by Bogor (Indonesia) and Titagarh, Baranagar and Serampore (all three in India).