Archive
Largest Empty Mall in the World: New South China Mall
Located about 50 miles north of Hong Kong in Dongguan, China, the New South China Mall is the largest mall in the world by gross leasable area. Twice the size of United States’ Mall of America, it was opened with room for 2,350 stores in 7.1 million square feet of leasable space.
No mall in the world can rival New South China in any category, except perhaps number of tenants.
Despite having every amenity a shopper could want, the mall has been 99% vacant since it’s opening in 2005.
The Oldest Continuously-Inhabited City in the World: Byblos, Lebanon
The holder of this title incurs more debate among archaeologists and historians than one might think. However if we are to define the metric as meaning “being established as a city and inhabited from it’s founding until present day, continuously,” the lines are a little more clear.
Carbon-dating tests have set the earliest age of settlement at Byblos around 7000 BC, however it was not officially established as a city until sometime around 5000 BC. Read more…
Ultimate Remote Location: Tristan da Cunha
If you wanted to get away from it all, where would you go? Previously Sometimes Interesting featured Bouvet Island, the most remote island in the world. Bouvet Island is not inhabitable, however, so what is the most remote inhabited location?
Tristan da Cunha would fit the bill, a small island of 37.8 square miles located almost 3,000 miles away from the nearest land. Don’t think you’ll fly there, though, as there is no airstrip on the island.
This one is accessed via boat. Read more…
The Largest Underground Lake in the World: Lake Vostok
There are more than 140 lakes underneath the glaciers in Antarctica. The largest is Lake Vostok, located 13,100 ft (4,000 m) beneath the Russian Vostok Weather Station in the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
The lake measures 160 miles (250 km) long by 30 miles (50 km) wide, covering over 6,060 square miles ( 15,690 km). What makes Lake Vostok so interesting is the unmolested habitat beneath the ice shelf; scientists believe the lake was sealed under an ice cap 15 million years ago. Read more…
World’s Largest Super Collider: Abandoned
A supercollider is a large ring designed to accelerate particles of protons and anti-protons until they collide, the purpose being to create high amounts of energy. In the mid 1980′s, the United States wanted to construct the largest particle collider in the world. What was to be called the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) began as an idea in 1983.
By 1987 Congress had approved the $4.4 billion dollar budget for the project, and by 1991 a site had been chosen in Texas and construction began. Read more…
World’s Largest Aircraft: Antonov An-225 Mriya
Bigger than a Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, longer and heavier than the Hughes H-4 “Spruce Goose”, The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft developed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Ukraine.
Known for its immense carrying capability, the An-225 can carry 550,000 lbs. internally or 440,000 lbs. on the upper fuselage. A behemoth with the sole mission to carry cargo, the An-225 requires six turbofan engines to keep its payload in the air. Read more…
Bouvet: The Most Remote Island in the World
In 1739 a French captain named Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier discovered a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Named for him, Bouvet Island is located 1,568 miles (2,525 km) South-Southwest of South Africa and only occupies 19 square-miles (49 km2).
Sitting alone in the South Atlantic, Bouvet Island is essentially a glacier on top of a dormant volcano. The closest land is Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, 1,090 miles (1,750 km) away. Queen Maud Land is a part-time weather station; the closest continuously-inhabited area to Bouvet Island is Cape Town, South Africa, 1,600 miles away. Read more…
Lighthouses: A Reference Guide
Lighthouses are a dying breed. Ships feared dark coastlines and relied on lighthouses to keep them safe from dangerous rocks. Today with GPS and other technologies, fewer ships need them so new lighthouse construction is extremely rare.
From candle-powered and manned lighthouses thousands of years ago to the modern, stand-alone LED lighthouses of today, it has been an interesting evolution for the coastline protectors of the world. What follows is a chronicle of important lighthouses in history.
