MAPS AND GEOGRAPHY

God created war so that Americans would learn geography-attributed to Mark Twain.

Urbano Monte's 10 foot square, 60 sheet manuscript world map made in 1587. One of the more unusual aspects of the map compared to maps from that era is that it portrays the world with the north pole at the center.

In this short vid, the map is transformed into the Google Earth sphere:

Five misconceptions about geography:

The US–Canada border is the longest international land boundary in the world comprising 5,450 total miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic Ocean.

 

Map showing the percentage of Americans who reside in the state they were born:

Landgeist

Yikes!

China's CO2 emissions:

 

Paid Maternity Leave across the world:

The United States, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and Tonga are the only countries in the world that don't provide for paid leave for employed mothers after they give birth. 

 

There is one federal leave law on the books. The Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, guarantees “eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.” Those reasons include birth, adoption, and foster placement of a new child.

“Covered employers” are employers that are either public agencies (at any level of government), K-12 schools (public or private), or private-sector employers who employed 50 or more people in 20 or more workweeks. That’s a complicated way of saying that smaller businesses—a favorite buzzword of certain political actors—don’t have to let their employees take time off when they have a kid.

“Eligible employees” are those who have had their job for at least 12 months and worked for at least 1,250 hours in the previous year at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles can claim leave under FMLA.

Median age by country, CIA World Factbook, 2024 estimated-click to enlarge:

Hasancelikbilek35 

 States where you can legally be evicted for being gay or trans:

 

The longest overland route in a straight line across the planet-8,433 miles!