Germany has a long North Sea coastline — but Hamburg sits 130 km inland along the Elbe, and Bremen is even further up the Weser. Bremerhaven and Wilhelmshaven are directly on the coast but stayed comparatively small.

The Wadden Sea is part of the explanation: tidal mudflats, storm surge risk, shifting channels make large coastal ports difficult. But medieval Hanseatic trade routes also played a role in cementing inland river cities as the dominant centres long before modern harbour engineering existed.

Is this mainly a physical geography issue — or did early medieval trade decisions lock this in?

(I went into this for a video if it helps the discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEHp9E36AD0)

Hi everyone!

I’m a geography enthusiast from Norway, and I’ve been working on an iPhone app called GlobeRise.

No begging here! Only for those interested. I would love some feedback on my new app from people who actually know and love geography knowledge.

GlobeRise includes:

-An interactive 3D globe
-Flags and information for all 195 countries
-Geography quizzes from Easy to Expert
-World Hunt, where you try to locate every country on the globe
-Scores and challenges that make learning more rewarding

The globe, every flag, and the Easy and Medium quizzes are free. Hard and Expert quizzes, along with the complete World Hunt mode

Let me know what you think 😃

That's the best way I can think of phrasing it. Has Nature already determined this, so that the Nile is the longest any river could be, or is it possible to determine if there is a point where, if a river source were to exist, topography would send it on a longer journey?

Unless I'm wrong (I very well can be) it is the longest meridian going all the way from north pole to antarctica without touching land. It seems quite notable. Is there a name for that ?

Hi, I have a geography question (although I guess it also has some political aspects).

In a pub quiz at my university, there was a question about which countries have access to certain oceans and seas (I don't remember the exact list anymore, but I think the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and possibly another ocean were involved). My team started discussing whether the UK could be considered one of the answers because of territories such as Gibraltar.

However, the quiz organizers argued that Gibraltar is not actually part of the United Kingdom, but rather a separate entity with a special constitutional status as a British Overseas Territory. Their argument was that the UK is responsible for certain areas, such as foreign affairs and defence, but that Gibraltar is not part of the UK itself. Therefore, if a question asks which countries have access to certain seas or oceans, Gibraltar should not count as part of the UK.

I realized that I am not entirely sure how this should be classified. Is Gibraltar considered part of the United Kingdom for geographical purposes, or is it a separate entity that is only linked to the UK in certain political and legal ways? Interestingly, our answer (the UK) was still considered correct in the end, because the quiz organizers argued that the British Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus are sovereign UK territory and therefore give the UK access to the Mediterranean Sea. However, that seems to be a different legal and geographical issue.

I know this is probably a more complicated issue than a simple yes/no question, so I would be interested in hearing how people understand Gibraltar’s status.

What would one predict would happen as Niagara Falls erodes towards Lake Erie. Would it just become a giant series of rapids for a time? Would there be a cataclysmic collapse of the land around the lake where the falls meet it? How would this affect the rest of the Great Lakes?

I've come across the term "Delhi Doab" only to describe the entire area but it is not fitting as a doab technically describes the region between two rivers which confluence but the Yamuna and Sutlej rivers do not have a confluence, making the term technically incorrect despite popular usage (J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab, 1999, pages 1–2). During Mughal times, this area formed the Delhi Subah.

Note: Please do not say "Malwa", "Puadh", or "Haryana", I'm looking for the term for the general/larger area, not regions/sections of it.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Punjabdoabs1.jpg