Microgeography Trivia

Did I just make up a word? I haven’t bothered to look up whether “microgeography” was a known idea before I thought of it just now. I was trying to think of a word that would convey (at least long enough for you to click and see what was going on) the notion of geographical details at the local level. Things like creeks’ paths, topographical details in your neighborhood, soil components in your area. That sort of thing.

At times when I’m at a loss for things to amuse me I’ll pull out the gazeteer of Tennessee (a Delorme product) and start looking at the details in my area. It always surprises me how few of the details on this kind of map are things I recognize when I’m out and about.

Whenever we’re out on my son-in-law’s boat on the river, I’m almost completely lost as to what features we’re passing by on the banks above us. Not being able to see much more than the immediate features makes it hard to get a feel for where we would be on a map of the area. Even with his GPS indicator it’s not easy.

I just got curious if other Dopers got into the details of maps and atlases as a source of amusement.

Do you know some specifics about your neighborhood/area that you suspect most of your neighbors don’t know?

I have found that most people do not know what and where the smallest National Park is.

Count me among them. I don’t even have a good guess. I do think I know what’s the longest one, but the smallest? I’m going to guess some place in Hawaii just because people rarely think of Hawaii for interstate highways. National Parks might be a stretch as well.

While we’re at it, can we identify among the National Parks:

  1. the highest
  2. the lowest
  3. the dryest
  4. the wettest
  5. the least visited

Unless the past few years have changed it, The Great Smoky Mountains were the most visited of the National Parks.

Hot Springs? I don’t know, it’s hard to keep track because they keep designating new ones.

1=Denali, 2=Death Valley, 3=Death Valley, 4=? 5 I believe = Kobuk Valley in Alaska.

My favorite topographical feature in the Chicago area is the “eastern continental divide”–the separation between the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley drainage basins. It’s hard to believe that such a divide could exist around here, because the land is flat as a pancake, but it does and it runs right through the city. (Of course the I&M canal is a manmade breach in the divide.) There’s a town called Summit which straddles the divide in the southwestern suburbs, and not one person in 100 knows why it is so named.

I know! I know!

The Klondike Museum in Seattle. It’s the only national park contained entirely within a building.

I distinctly remember being able to read maps when I was very young. I probably learned that shortly after I learned how to read. We had an old atlas (didn’t even show roads, only railroads) that I loved to look at. I’m pretty sure I grasp how to look up towns and landmarks on my own. I understood what the letters and numbers around the margins of the map were for. That atlas is still around somewhere. It’s in very ratty shape but it did survive five curious kids.

Dunno how you’d categorize snow, but Paradise (on Mt Rainier) holds a world record for snowfall in a single season. That’d probably make Mt Rainier the snowiest national park, at least in the sense of “a whole bunch of snow in one place within the park.”

Fish, here’s a link to that record.

What about the Olympic National Park? It gets 140 to 167 inches of rain a year in some areas. Maybe there’s a park in Alaska’s panhandle that gets more? Or possibly somewhere in Hawaii.

I know there’s several underwater parks. Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park is mostly underwater, where snorkelers can explore its spectacular coral reefs and shipwrecks. Would that count?

By the way, Zeldar, I love DeLorme’s gazetteers. I wish I could afford them all but only have Alaska.

Not quite. The Klondike Museum is only part of Klondike Goldrush NHP in Skagway, Alaska. The smallest unit by area is Thaddeus Kosciuszko NMEM in Philadelphia. It really is only one building and 0.02 acre.

I meant to say: the other part Klondike Goldrush NHP is in Skagway, AK.

I grew up in Livonia, Michigan. Very few people know that the city was almost called Maple, Michigan.

There’s another city nearby called Novi. It was the sixth station on a train out. Hence No. VI, or Novi.

Sounds like the town of Tenino, Washington (named for train 1090, or so the story goes).

Localized geography, huh? OK, uh…the county I’m in has more than 1500 known caves, the most of any county in the US. Most of them appear at the ragged margin of the Cumberland Plateau, along the Sequatchie River valley, which used to be a continuous ridge, until the ceiling fell into a gigantic cavern system, forming a valley.
look at the Sequatchie valley on a topo map, and you can see where the cave system used to be.

Well, I seem to be wrong, It is now the http://www.answers.com/topic/national-park-service-2
Ben Franklin that is smaller than the Devils Hole… Was a sign at DH when I was there that it was the smallest…

I think I read somewhere that a park in Hawaii has the highest rainfall, but Google wouldn’t share.

My cousin drove a race car at the then named Olympia-Tenino Speedway. He numbered the car

T-9-O.

He spent a lot of time explaining what the number meant.

Not sure this is trivia; possibly too well known to count as that:

What connection does Robert E. Lee have to Arlington National Cemetary?

IIRC, the U.S. Gvt confiscated part of his estate for ‘temporary use’, then started using it as a cemetary, then offered to return it back to the family after the Civil War. They said, uh, thanks anyhow, keep it.

Anyhow, for slightly odd local names, we have Coalinga

Originally called “Coaling A” as a coal and water stop for one of the early railroads in California

…and El Segundo

The second oil refinery by Standard Oil on the West Coast

In Saskatchewan, there are a group of towns on the Canadian National Railway that were originally all named in alphbetical order as the railroad was built:

Atwater, Bangor,…,Fenwood, Goodeve, Hubbard, Ituna, Jasmin, Kelliher, Leross, …, Punnicy, Quinton, Raymore, Semans, Tate,…,Venn, Watrous, Young, Zelma. (There are other names in the gaps, but they were probably renamed.)

Fishers Island, NY is nearer to Connecticut than to any point in New York State.

In Tokyo, train stations are named for the district in which they are located. However, Shinagawa Station is in Minato Ward, not Shinagawa Ward. And Meguro Station is in Shinagawa Ward, not Meguro Ward.

Mt. Waialeale is the wettest place in Hawaii and US. Sometimes the world, it gets beat out by the monsoons. One of the things I recall is that it averages about 5 cloudless days a year. But it’s not an national park. I’ve taken a helicopter ride into the crater once. That was extremely neat. We were just below cloud level and green covered walls all around us within a stones throw. With the only break in the green being white waterfalls. Good times.

I know there’s a park that’s only the size of a flower pot? Dave Atell visited in. Ah!