Geography Trivia

[BDS]

Here's my Geography trivia question of the day (I once thought it up sitting around in a bar with friends, but I didn't get the correct answer)

Which of the world's nations has the highest low point (as measured above sea level)?

In other words -- the very lowest point in some country is 3000 or 4000 feet above sea level. I remember (after looking it up) the top 5, so credit for any guesses including one of them.

p.s. The idea is not to look up the answer, but to make an educated guess.

[Crumb]

My first guess would have to be Nepal.

[fragment]

My guesses for top 5 will be Mongolia, Afghanistan, Lichtenstein, Bhutan, Lesotho.

[D. Scarlatti]

I'm pretty sure Kyrgyzstan is in the top five or so. I'm guessing the highest lowest point is in Africa somewhere.

[Crumb]

So now we can see how far off I am eh?

[BDS]

Among the guesses so far, one is correct (it's actually #1). None of the others are in the top 5, however.

[D. Scarlatti]

:dopey:

[fragment]

Sheesh! My cunning ploy of guessing 5 totally backfired.

[godfry n. glad]

Kyrgyzstan.

Others:

Tibet
Sikkim
Tadjikistan
Bolivia

ETA: I struck out entirely.

[BDS]

The winner is: fragment, with his brilliant choice of Lesotho. Low point, 1400 meters.

Nobody else guessed any countries in the top 5, so guesses are still open.

Tibet and Sikkim are not listed in my source (presumably because they don't count as countries).

Nepal -- 70 meters
Mongolia -- 518
Tajikstan -- 318
Bolivia -- 90
Bhutan -- 97
Afghanistan -- 258
Kyrgystan -- 152

[JoeP]

"Lesotho: the Switzerland of Africa." Never yet been there, though. Aside: One of the weird things about climbing the Drakensberg mountains is that when you get to the top you can be robbed by Basotho tribesmen, because the steep climb on the South African side is not matched on the other side - it's highland there, and inhabited, albeit sparsely.

Back on topic: what is Switzerland's claim to fame in terms of altitude?

[godfry n. glad]

Yeah... I guess Tibet is now considered a Chinese province and Sikkim has been subsumed into India.

Mongolia is #6, from my source.

One of the top five is in Europe.

[godfry n. glad]

Back on topic: what is Switzerland's claim to fame in terms of altitude?

The greatest rate of change in altitude?

[godfry n. glad]

Okay... I've a list of the lowest dry spots...

Since everybody seems to know #1, we'll just throw it out there - the banks of the Dead Sea in Jordan, Israel and Palestine at -408 m below sea level.

Name the countries of the next five locations....

[BDS]

Since you and I have the same source, Godfry, I have to disqualify myself.

By the way, here's an interesting bit of Geographical trivia that I've heard, but I don't really know if it's correct or not:

What's the highest mountain in the world as measured from the Center of the Earth?

(I don't know how to use those "spoiler" tabs, but the answer I've heard is Chimborazo, because it is on the equator, and the earth's circumfrance is largest at the equator.)

[godfry n. glad]

Since you and I have the same source, Godfry, I have to disqualify myself.

By the way, here's an interesting bit of Geographical trivia that I've heard, but I don't really know if it's correct or not:

What's the highest mountain in the world as measured from the Center of the Earth?

(I don't know how to use those "spoiler" tabs, but the answer I've heard is Chimborazo, because it is on the equator, and the earth's circumfrance is largest at the equator.)


I've heard that Mauna Kea is actually taller than Everest, if one measures from the base of the mountain to the peak. Mauna Kea's base is on the Pacific floor.

[fragment]

For lowest dry spots, there's that one in Egypt, called the Quattra Depression I think. Maybe the shores of the Caspian sea. Something in Australia, "Lake" Eyre, is it? Not sure what else, Death Valley or Lake Chad possibly.

I'll take another couple of stabs at the highest low points too - Rwanda, Uganda.

[Clutch Munny]

Kilimanjaro, innit? Because it's near the Equatorial bulge?

[BDS]

I'm impressed fragment. You just nailed two more!

Once you get Rwanda and Uganda, Burundi is pretty obvious. Nobody got the European one yet, though.

I think Chimborazo is higher than Kilimanjaro, Clutch, and equally on the equator.

Coincidentally, my (late) mother climbed both Chimborazo and Kilimanjaro (she was a stud climber). She climbed Chimborazo as a young woman, and Kilimanjaro when she was 60 (Kilimanjaro is well known as being the highest mountain in the world with a "walk up" route to the top).

Her story about climbing Kilimanjaro came to me by post card, something to the effect of: "Bagged Kilimanjaro last week. 19,310 ft. I went with a guide and 3 20-something Brits. They were looking at me as if to say, 'Who is this old lady, and how much is she going to slow us down.' I was the only one to make it to the top. Altitude sickness gets most of them."

(The last line was a bit of a dig on me, since I suffered from altitude sickness on some of our family climbs. Mom was a bit of a competitor.)

[godfry n. glad]

For lowest dry spots, there's that one in Egypt, called the Quattra Depression I think.

The Qattara Depression in Egypt is #4, so you score again! The rest of your guesses are outclassed by many others.

[fragment]

I think I spent too much time looking at atlases when I was young.

[godfry n. glad]

I think I spent too much time looking at atlases when I was young.

Not possible.

Atlases and almanacs are great things to spend time with....

[fragment]

Is the European highest low Andorra?

Still stumped on the lowest dries.

[godfry n. glad]

Bingo!

And BDS, what do we have for our winner?

I was actually surprised at low dry spot #2. It's in the horn of Africa, in a very small nation.

As for #3, I've actually been there. (I've been to #1, as well.)

[godfry n. glad]

Hey... I just ran across the lowest high elevation. That's the only one I know is the one with the lowest high. Anybody care to hazard a guess?

[California Tanker]

Umm.... Easter Island?

NTM

[godfry n. glad]

Right idea. Wrong locale.

Now I'm confused. Maybe it's because Easter Island is not a nation?

ETA: Okay, I'm calling this one off, because I think my source is either got it wrong, or I got the understanding of the question wrong (more likely), but they were saying the Seychelles Islands. Now, they are an island nation north of Madagascar...But looking at the details, Mt. Seychellos is 902 m, which is not lower than Easter Island at 118 m, so I thought that it might be a nation thing, but the Netherlands is only 312 m at it's highest.

So... Nevermind. :doh:

[fragment]

So, low dry spot #2 would be in Eritrea? Is it that part of the rift valley system that's going to become an arm of the Red Sea in a few million years time? If so, I didn't realise it was that low.

[godfry n. glad]

It's not in Eritrea.

[BDS]

I looked up the "lowest high point" once -- and I think it's the Maldives, the highest point of which is 2.4 meters. Maldives has actually received some publicity about this because of global warming (when your highest point is 2.4 meters, the melting of polar ice caps represents quite a threat).

[godfry n. glad]

I looked up the "lowest high point" once -- and I think it's the Maldives, the highest point of which is 2.4 meters. Maldives has actually received some publicity about this because of global warming (when your highest point is 2.4 meters, the melting of polar ice caps represents quite a threat).

I must have screwed up the island group. The Maldives are south of the Indian peninsula, aren't they? I remember when I heard the highest elevation, I thought, "Wow, a tsunami would just flush everything away."

ETA: That's it, alright. And the tsunami did do major damage (75 killed, "including 6 foreigners"), but because there was no major land mass for the waves to build up against, it was only 1.5 m high (I assume over the entire island group).

Interesting that the Wiki article has an internal inconsistancy. What religion did the natives practice prior to the arrival of Islam?

It sounds like south Asia's answer to New Orleans.

[Megatron]

Can I borrow about 70 more IQ points from someone so I have some sort of clue what the hell you guys are talking about in this thread? Please? :(

[godfry n. glad]

Mostly we're talking about elevation - how high up the measurer is from a given spot, in this case, sea level.

The first question was which nations have the highest low elevation. In other words, those nations where the lowest elevation in the entire country is higher than most others. By definition, they would be countries without a seashore, because that would place them at 0 ft/m above/below sea level.

The second question was, in what countries are the lowest dry spots. That is, those areas on dry land which are below sea level. The known is that that Dead Sea, bordered by Israel, Jordan and Palestine is the lowest dry spot on the globe. I asked for the next five, I believe. The lowest dry spot in North America is Death Valley, California, but it rates only #8 on the global list. It's not the lowest in the western hemisphere.

The last question was what country had the lowest high elevation. This is asking what country is the flattest at or near sea level. The Maldives fit that bill. And they are a group of granitic and coral islands southsouthwest of the Indian peninsula.

Does that help at all?

[Megatron]

How do you know this kind of stuff? :)

[godfry n. glad]

It usually comes from following a curiosity in an interest and researching it. In my case, I like to travel. In my travels, I've been interested to learn why what is where and who cares...which is what geography is all about.

In the case of elevation, I was in one of the lowest dry spots on earth...I was told that. It was interesting and all, but I wanted to know if it was the deepest or not. I don't actually know it all, I have just attuned my techniques for making educated guesses based upon doing things like fragment has done...spent hours pouring over atlas, maps and almanacs. Often it is just to learn something new and interesting.

Me? I also used to teach this stuff to pre-adolescents and adolescents.