Wikipedia:Unusual articles/Places and infrastructure
Appearance
Places and infrastructure
[edit]Breast-shaped hill | Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester. |
Eiffel Tower replicas and derivatives | Not as unique as you might have thought. |
Folly | Buildings prized for their uselessness. |
Gravity hill | A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling up it. |
List of cities claimed to be built on seven hills | Almost 100 different cities across all inhabited continents, trying to get the credibility of having something in common with Rome. |
List of micronations | Ever wanted to start your own country? |
List of tautological place names | Place names that contain truisms and say what they are. |
Phantom island | Like islands, but they don't exist. |
Pizza farm | All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location! |
Recursive islands and lakes | Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands... |
Rocket garden | Landscaping and rocketry, together at last. |
Spite house | Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors. |
Valeriepieris circle | You either live inside the circle or outside. Even though you live inside. |
Africa
[edit]Abuja Airplane House | An aeroplane-themed villa in the capital of Nigeria. | |
Akon City | A 2000s R&B singer is planning his very own city in his native Senegal, based around his very own cryptocurrency which he calls "Akoin". | |
Bir Tawil | One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country. An American trekked there and claimed it in 2014 as the Kingdom of North Sudan so he could make his daughter a princess. | |
Blue Desert | Following the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, the United Nations gave several tons of blue paint to a Belgian artist, so he could commemorate it by painting a line of boulders in the Sinai Desert blue. | |
Boulders Beach | A beach on the Southern African coast, near an urban residential area, known for being home to a colony of several thousand penguins. | |
Congo Pedicle | What happens when a tyrannical king decides he wants to hunt game in a swamp. | |
Dallol (hydrothermal system) | A region surrounding a volcano in Ethiopia, known for its alien-looking bright colours, and populated by vast salt plains and extremely hot acidic sulfur-emitting hot springs, that according to some studies, are absent of even the smallest microbes. There is a now-abandoned town of the same name nearby, which formerly held the record of the hottest inhabited place on Earth. | |
Gaet'ale Pond | A small lake in Ethiopia that was created in 2005 after an earthquake. It's not bitter, it's just really, really salty. | |
Giraffe Manor | A hotel in suburban Nairobi where you can eat alongside one of the world's most endangered giraffe subspecies. | |
Hoba Meteorite | The largest intact meteorite in the world. | |
Jacob's Ladder | It's all very downhill from here. | |
Kalakuta Republic | A compound housing Fela Kuti - a famous Nigerian musician - his family, band musicians and recording studio, which he declared independent and used to criticize the Nigerian military junta of the 1970s. They responded by raiding it with over a thousand soldiers, setting it alight, and throwing Fela's mother out of the window. | |
Lake Nyos | A lake in northwestern Cameroon that released gas in 1986, killing 1,746 people. One of 2 known gassy lakes, the other being Lake Monoun. | |
Lake Retba | A lake in Senegal that is naturally pink and is one of the saltiest lakes in the world. | |
Mauritania Railway | Mauritania's entire national rail network consists of a single line connecting the centre of the country's iron mining industry with the port city of Nouadhibou. Said line is also home to the world's longest and heaviest trains, filled with iron ore and as long as 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in length. | |
Oklo | The former site of the world's only natural nuclear fission reactors. | |
Palácio de Ferro | A bright yellow iron building in Luanda dating back to the colonial era, that is noted for the fact that there is no record of who or why it was built - although legend has it that it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the Eiffel Tower. | |
Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera | A rock on the Moroccan coast connected to the mainland by an 80-metre-wide (260 ft) tombolo; it is owned by Spain. In 2012, four Moroccan irredentists attempted to storm and take over the territory. | |
Republic of Benin (1967) | One of the shortest-lived states in history, it was independent for only seven hours (07:00 to 14:00 on 19 September 1967). | |
Socotra | A Yemeni island that is geographically part of Africa, and is known as "the most alien-looking place on Earth" due to its strange flora. This includes the "dragon blood tree" and a tree which produces cucumbers. | |
La Tante DC10 Restaurant | A grounded McDonnell Douglas DC-10 passenger aircraft in Accra that has been converted into a giant plane-shaped restaurant. | |
Tromelin Island | An island near Madagascar that is famous for being the site of a major humanitarian disaster in the 18th century. | |
The Owl House | Not the acclaimed animated LGBT fantasy cartoon that aired on Disney Channel; this is an outdoor museum that was created by a reclusive outsider artist who decorated her inherited house with over 300 glass and concrete sculptures of owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and other forms. | |
Umoja, Kenya | An entire women's-only village in Kenya established in response to violence against women in Samburu tribal society. |
Antarctica
[edit]Blood Falls | A naturally occurring plume of saltwater that is blood red thanks to its high iron oxide content. | |
Mawson Peak | The tallest mountain in the Commonwealth of Australia is not on the mainland, but on a barren, uninhabited island more than 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) away. | |
McMurdo Dry Valleys | An area of Antarctica that a) contains an extremely saline body of water, and b) has not experienced rainfall for over two million years. | |
Marie Byrd Land | The largest unclaimed territory in the world. Notable for being bigger than Mongolia, having one of Antarctica's biggest human bases, and being the setting of The Thing. | |
New Swabia | The Nazi territory in Antarctica. | |
Pole of Inaccessibility research station | A short-lived Soviet research station in Antarctica that is now completely covered by snow - save for a small bust of Vladimir Lenin peeking out the ground. | |
Villa Las Estrellas | One of only two civilian settlements in Antarctica. |
Asia
[edit]798 Art Zone | How an abandoned complex of military factory buildings became the heart of Beijing's modern art scene. | |
Aoshima, Ehime | An island where cats outnumber humans 36:1. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see: Tashirojima). | |
Artsvashen | An Armenian town surrounded and controlled by Azerbaijan. One of a number of similar towns on this border; others include Yukhari Askipara, Barxudarlı and Karki. | |
Atar, Padang Ganting | An Indonesian village with a monument resembling a photocopier. | |
Bust of Ferdinand Marcos | A Mount Rushmore in the Philippines, right down to displacing its indigenous inhabitants. It was mercifully blown up by rebels in 2002. | |
Camp Bonifas | The bunkers on this golf course feature machine-guns and landmines. | |
Chao Mae Tuptim shrine | A shrine dedicated to penises in Bangkok, built in the early 20th century by a Thai businessman, on the edge of his property. | |
Christmas Island | A small island and external territory of Australia close to Indonesia that is mainly known for having up to 100 million crabs migrate to spawn there every year. | |
Dahala Khagrabari | India inside Bangladesh inside India inside Bangladesh. Formerly the only third-order enclave in the world. | |
Darvaza gas crater | A flaming, 70 m (230 ft) wide, 30 m (98 ft) deep crater in the middle of the Karakum Desert, on fire since 1971. | |
Dhekelia Power Station | A Cypriot power station that provides power to a British military base that surrounds it. | |
Diomede Islands | Two islands in the Bering Strait separated by 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) and 21 hours' time difference. | |
Gangkhar Puensum | The tallest mountain nobody has ever summitted, as the Bhutanese government has prohibited mountaineering since 2003. | |
Gate Tower Building | A skyscraper in Japan that has a highway offramp passing through its fifth, sixth and seventh floors. | |
Hallstatt (China) | An ongoing replica construction of a town in Austria. | |
Haesindang Park | Also known as "Penis Park", this is a park on the Korean coast, known for being full of wooden statues of penises, apparently to do with local shamanic folklore. | |
Hanazono Room | An indoor swimming pool in Japan used as the site for many pornographic films. | |
Hằng Nga Guesthouse | Vietnam's most fantastical building? | |
High-Heel Wedding Church | A glass slipper that Prince Charming would struggle to find a fit for. | |
Imsil Cheese Theme Park | I dunno, this place seems a little cheesy to me. | |
Jackson Hole, China | A planned resort town outside of Beijing that is based off a small town in Wyoming. | |
Jatinga | The Bermuda Triangle of birds. | |
Jaxa (state) | A 17th-century microstate located on the Amur River between the Tsardom of Russia and Qing China, with a population mostly consisting of Polish and Ukrainians. | |
Jewish Autonomous Oblast | In the depths of Eastern Siberia there's a place with street names in Yiddish, even though 99% of its population is not Jewish. | |
Kabul synagogue | The last synagogue in Kabul was inhabited by two men, who both ended up being imprisoned by the Taliban because they got annoyed by the two constantly complaining about each other, before later being converted by one of the men into a kebab restaurant. | |
Kai Tak Airport | A major international airport closed in 1998 where planes literally almost crashed constantly into the city due to a right-hand turn over the city. | |
Karni Mata Temple | A marble temple famous for 25,000 revered black rats that live in the temple who are considered the ancestors of Charans. | |
Khewra Salt Mine | One of the largest salt mines in the world, it was allegedly discovered by Alexander the Great's horses. | |
Kijong-dong | Two unique Korean villages, separated by the DMZ and notable for their arms race of giant flagpoles. The North Korean village contains a propaganda-blasting loudspeaker and zero residents to hear it. Meanwhile its Southern counterpart forbids residency except to families that have been there since before the War, and grows "DMZ rice" that makes the farmers exceptionally wealthy. | |
Daeseong-dong | ||
Korea Central Zoo | A zoo with such wondrous animals as a chimpanzee with a smoking habit, a parrot that sings the praises of Kim Il-sung, and dogs. | |
Kowloon Walled City | A former enclave in the city of Hong Kong, known for lawlessness and extremely cramped conditions before it was destroyed and turned into a park. | |
Li's field | A supposed forcefield that explains why tropical cyclones swerve away from Hong Kong. | |
Living root bridge | Double-decker suspension bridges formed of living plant aerial roots of rubber fig trees by tree shaping common in the southern part of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. | |
Love Land | An erotic-themed sculpture park on Jeju island in South Korea. | |
Maijishan Grottoes | A massive complex of hundreds of man-made caves, stairways and thousands of Buddhist sculptures carved into the side of a mountain in the fifth century, high above the surface. | |
Masuleh | A village built on the side of a mountain in such a way that most of the walkable space in the village is on the rooftops of the buildings of the layer below. | |
Missing Post Office | Where all the world's undeliverable post goes. | |
Modern Toilet Restaurant | Wait, that isn't the kind of bowl I want to eat out of... | |
Nahwa | One of only eight counter-enclaves (enclaves of enclaves). | |
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic | A landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan (it is surrounded by three different countries rather than only one, so it is not an enclave). | |
Nanjie | A settlement in Henan Province that is often described as "China's last Maoist village", maintaining a collectively-owned economy and public displays and statues of historic Marxist-Leninist leaders. | |
National Fisheries Development Board building | Another example of mimetic architecture, this time in Hyderabad, in the form of a building shaped like a humongous fish. | |
North Sentinel Island | A small island in the Bay of Bengal, known for being inhabited by a virtually uncontacted isolationist tribe who attack all outsiders who attempt to land on their island. The Indian government leaves them alone, outlawing all travel to the island - although that hasn't stopped some foolish travellers from trying. | |
National Route 339 | A national highway with a staircase in the middle. | |
Neutrality Monument | A massive legged arch built in the capital of Turkmenistan by the eccentric former dictator to commemorate the fact that Turkmenistan is officially neutral. Also used to feature a gold-plated statue of him on top that constantly rotated so that it always faced the sun. | |
Okinoshima (Fukuoka) | An entire island that is considered a kami in the Shinto religion, and is continuously inhabited by lone Shinto priests who spend ten-day shifts guarding the shrine on the island. Women are prohibited due to their menstruation, as blood is considered impure in Shinto. | |
Ōkunoshima | An island between the Japanese home islands of Honshu and Shikoku formerly home to a chemical weapons plant in WW2, now home to a huge population of feral but largely tame rabbits. | |
Om Banna | An Indian shrine dedicated to a supposedly-sentient motorbike. | |
Omsk Metro | A metro system with only one station and a total length of zero kilometres. | |
Peanut Hole | A delightfully named patch of ocean in the Sea of Okhotsk that is totally surrounded by Russia's EEZ but not inside it. Often the subject of foreign overfishing. | |
Porcelain Palace | China's largest and most lavish palace - that is dedicated to the humble public toilet. | |
Rednaxela Terrace | A street in Hong Kong, whose name was reportedly reversed due to a clerical error. | |
Robot Building | That's not a giant robot looming in Bangkok; it's just a bank's headquarters. | |
Roopkund | A small lake in the Himalayas known for mysteriously having hundreds of ancient human skeletons along its edges. | |
Ryugyong Hotel | Once, it would have been the world's tallest hotel – except it lacked windows, fittings, or fixtures for over twenty years. | |
— | San Serriffe | A lesser-known island in the Indian Ocean, subject of the April 1, 1977 Guardian. |
Sansha | A disputed prefecture-level city in Hainan consisting of a collection of atolls and reefs throughout the South China Sea. | |
Kingdom of Sedang | In the 1880s, a French adventurer created a kingdom in Vietnam. | |
Seikan Tunnel Tappi Shakō Line | The closed funicular that connects an underground train station inside the Seikan Tunnel with a museum. | |
Shani Shingnapur | A holy Hindu village that doesn't have any doors. | |
Shingō, Aomori | A town in Japan that is (supposedly) home to the tomb of Jesus. The story behind the supposed tomb is even odder. | |
Snake Temple | A Chinese temple most notable for having snakes (alive) within its compounds. It also has a snake breeding area. | |
Sokh District | An exclave of Uzbekistan enclaved within Kyrgyzstan with a 99% Tajik population. | |
Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China | The Communist Chinese government elects delegates to represent an island it has never owned or controlled. | |
Tashirojima | An island in Japan notable for being full of cats. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see: Aoshima, Ehime). | |
Thames Town | An entire replica English-style town built as an upscale planned community near Shanghai. Mostly empty, but a popular destination for wedding photography. | |
The Line | A planned city in Saudi Arabia that was originally planned to be a 110-mile long straight line and has been described by critics as "dystopian." | |
Thimmamma Marrimanu | A single tree with a canopy that covers 19,107 m2, and consequently is considered sacred among followers of several Indian religions. | |
Tomb of Suleyman Shah | One of the burial sites of the first Ottoman emperor's grandfather is part of Turkey despite being 27 kilometres (17 mi) south of the country's border with Syria. | |
Trunyan | A village in Bali where residents openly lay corpses on the ground and wait for them to decompose instead of cremating or burying them. | |
Tsu Station | By kana, the tersest railway station in Japan, serving the capital of an almost as terse prefecture. By stroke count, the tersest in the world. By transliteration, only second-tersest. | |
Underground City (Beijing) | A massive complex of tunnels underneath Beijing, built in the Cold War as a nuclear bomb shelter, fitted with facilities such as schools, clinics, factories and even an ice rink. | |
Villaggio Mall | A Qatari shopping mall built to resemble an Italian town, with Venetian canals and gondolas. Also notorious for being the site of a deadly nursery fire in 2012. | |
Wang Saen Suk | A place in Thailand dedicated to materialized Buddist's hell scenes. | |
Wonderland Amusement Park | The largest abandoned amusement park in Asia. | |
X-Seed 4000 | The tallest building ever designed, standing 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) tall and housing 500,000 to 1,000,000 people on 800 floors. It is, however, "never meant to be built". | |
Yongning Pagoda | A 6th-century pagoda that was possibly the tallest structure in the world until it was destroyed by lightning 18 years after its completion. | |
Zhangye National Geopark | A national park known for its mountains with natural multicoloured stripes. | |
Zheltuga Republic | An illegal gold mining settlement that developed into a thriving unrecognised country, only surviving because the Chinese government was unaware that it existed. |
Europe
[edit]Abode of Chaos | An artist buys an old scenic house in a rural town and transforms it into a replica warzone that serves as an open-air museum of radical avant-garde art, angering locals enough to sue him in France's supreme court. | |
Ängelholm UFO memorial | A memorial to a reputed UFO landing in Sweden. | |
Argleton | A non-existent town in Lancashire, England that appeared on Google Maps. | |
Baarle-Hertog | Two municipalities, one of Belgium and one of the Netherlands, that surround each other twice and many times over. Some houses and shops are in both countries. | |
Baarle-Nassau | ||
Barack Obama Plaza | A motorway service area in County Tipperary, Ireland celebrating the work and Irish heritage of U.S. President Barack Obama. | |
Barcelona Supercomputing Center | A supercomputer in a medieval chapel. | |
Barentsburg | A completely Russian town, inhabited by Russians, with Russian buildings, supported financially by the Russian government, located in Norway. | |
Barra Airport | An airport that only operates when the tide allows. | |
Battersea Power Station tube station | A train station named after a non-train station. | |
Beans and Bacon mine | With such little ventilation, visitors may want to avoid any source of ignition. Nearby mines are not to be outdone and have the following names: Mule Spinner, Frogs Hole, Cackle Mackle, and Wanton Legs. | |
Berlin Brandenburg Airport | An airport in Berlin whose construction is finished but which is unfinished in other areas. Construction was finished in 2012; however, the opening date was repeatedly pushed back as the fire suppression system was installed incorrectly. It finally opened in October 2020. | |
Bielefeld conspiracy | The Bielefeld-Verschwörung tries to hide the horrible truth about a city in Westphalia, Germany that doesn't exist ... well, maybe. | |
Brennender Berg | A German coal mine on fire since 1668. | |
The Broomway | Perhaps the most dangerous path in the world. Would you join the hundred others who died walking the invisible path? | |
Brusio spiral viaduct | The title says it all, really. | |
Bucket Lake | A lake that only exists thanks to the wanton misuse of a plastic bucket. | |
Bunkers in Albania | Enver Hoxha loved them so much he decided to fill his country with over 173,000 of them. | |
Büsingen am Hochrhein | A German town that is fully contained within Switzerland. | |
Butt Hole Road | A tiny residential street in the UK that was so infamous for its name that it became a tourist attraction. | |
Buzludzha monument | A futurist monument built by the Bulgarian Communist Party that looks like a communist spaceship – especially on the inside. | |
Carpatho-Ukraine | The third-shortest-lived state in history (see Benin Republic in Nigeria); it was independent for only 24 hours. | |
Cerne Abbas Giant | An indecent chalk man in the English countryside. | |
Clachan Bridge | Walk across the Atlantic in just 30 seconds! | |
Colletto Fava | A 1,500-metre (4,900 ft) hill with a 61-metre (200 ft) stuffed pink bunny on top. | |
Cologne sewerage system | Probably the only sewers with a Chandelier Hall that hosts music performances. Probably. | |
Couto Misto | A de facto independent microstate on the border between Spain and Portugal that existed until the 19th century. | |
Crinkley Bottom | An unsuccessful series of three theme parks built across England, devoted to a grotesque and horrifying BBC children's TV character from the 90s. One of them collapsed within four months of opening due to a massive and costly legal dispute with the local council over funding and liquor permits, while the abandoned site of another was demolished after it was used to host illegal raves. | |
The Crooked House | A pub along the Staffordshire/Black Country border which was at an angle due to ground subsidence as a result of local mining activity, causing bottles rolled along tables to appear to roll uphill. It was destroyed in suspicious circumstances in August 2023. | |
Crooked Forest | A grove of pine trees that are all bent in the same direction just as they emerge from the ground, before going straight back up again as normal. Nobody knows why this is the case. | |
Cube house | A group of unusually-shaped houses designed to maximize their space. | |
Dancing House | Also known as "Ginger and Fred" for its resemblance to a pair of dancers. | |
Dartmouth railway station | A train station that has been open since 1864 despite no trains ever stopping there. | |
Dry Bridge | After the river that this bridge spanned was dried up, it remained, connecting two pieces of the same field that don't have any physical barriers between them. | |
Dumb Woman's Lane | A lane in East Sussex with a humorous name. Spike Milligan used to live there, and Paul McCartney wrote a poem about it. | |
Ebenezer Place, Wick | The world's shortest street. | |
Eichener See | A lake in southern Germany that only occasionally contains water. | |
Eurobridges Spijkenisse | The generic bridges of the euro banknotes brought to reality. | |
Fallen Monument Park | A Russian park best known for its toppled statues. | |
Father Pat Noise plaque | O'Connell Bridge bears a tribute to a priest who was as dearly remembered as he was completely fictional. | |
Ferdinand Cheval | A postman, who, for thirty-three years, collected stones while making his rounds and used them to build a surreal Palais Idéal ("Ideal Palace") of astonishing proportions and intricate detail. | |
Ferdinandea Island | The island that disappeared. And rose again. And sank again. And rose again. And sank again. | |
Flannan Isles Lighthouse | Located on Eilean Mór, this lighthouse to the west of Scotland is the subject of an enduring mystery over the disappearance of its keepers in 1900. | |
Forest swastika | A gigantic swastika made of larch trees that went unnoticed for nearly sixty years. | |
Free State of Bottleneck | When occupation zones don't quite meet closely enough, you get a tiny slice of the Rhineland that acts as its own country. | |
Fugging, Upper Austria | A village in Austria that used to be called "Fucking", but changed its profane-sounding name after years of torment in the form of stolen road signs (some of which had to be enstoned in concrete) to something that still sounds kind of profane. | |
Galešnjak | An island off the coast of Croatia that is naturally shaped like a heart symbol. | |
Gammalsvenskby | A Swedish village, populated by Swedes, who speak an ancient Swedish dialect, in Ukraine. | |
Gants Hill tube station | A station on the London Underground designed to look like a station on the Moscow Metro. | |
Graun im Vinschgau | This village's most proud landmark is an underwater church tower, the last remnant of the old flooded village right next to it. | |
Great Tower Neuwerk | The oldest standing building "in" Hamburg is a lighthouse over 100 km away. | |
Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue | A giant artificial palm tree created to remind everyone of the name of the street it's on. | |
Gropecunt Lane | A street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages. | |
Grūtas Park | Alternatively known as Stalin World, this park answers the little-asked question of "what should we do with all these Soviet-era statues and monuments from our oppressive past?" Won its creator, mushroom magnate Viliumas Malinauskas, the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize. | |
Gutsbezirk Reinhardswald | A "village" that covers 180 square kilometres of uninhabited forest, with only two inhabitants: the owners of a restaurant. | |
Hill of Crosses | This small hill in northern Lithuania is home to over 100,000 crosses and other Catholic symbols planted in the ground. | |
I Love You Will U Marry Me | A graffiti proposal that has long outlasted the relationship, and is now marked by neon lights. | |
Icelandic Phallological Museum | A museum in Iceland solely devoted to the collection of penis specimens and penis-related art. | |
JASON reactor | The only nuclear reactor in a 17th-century building. | |
Kielce Bus Station | A Polish bus station that was deliberately designed to look like a UFO. | |
Kőbánya cellar system | Budapest has an expansive underground complex of beer and wine cellars that is so large it totals around 200,000 square metres (2,200,000 sq ft) in area. | |
Krzywy Domek | The most interesting house in Poland. | |
Kursdorf | A village that was abandoned after being gradually encircled after a nearby major aiport, resulting in an average sound level of nearly 60 decibels. It earned the title of "the loudest village in Germany". | |
Lacus Curtius | A pit in the middle of the Roman Forum; even the Romans didn't know why it was there. | |
Lahn | A city so unpopular, not only did it only last 2 years, but its only local elections were won by the party that promised to wipe it off the map. | |
Lake Karachay | Formerly a lake, it had so much nuclear waste dumped into it that it's now completely dry and possibly the most polluted place on earth. | |
Leaning Tower of Suurhusen | Beating the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees. | |
List of destroyed landmarks in Spain | Over 60 interesting buildings, including larger castles, royal palaces, leaning towers, city gates which were completely or partially demolished and no longer exist, with their respective articles and images. | |
Listenbourg | The European country most Americans can't point out on a map (because it doesn't exist). | |
Llandegley International Airport | When is an international airport not an international airport? When it's not an airport at all. | |
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll | Or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, if you want to get technical. | |
Lupanar | A brothel preserved underneath the ashes of Pompeii, complete with 2000-year-old lewd grafitti. | |
Magic Roundabout | Only in the United Kingdom would you find a large roundabout with six mini-roundabouts. (Not to be confused with the "Magic Roundabout"s in Colchester, Swindon or High Wycombe – or, for that matter, this "Magic Roundabout".) | |
Manneken Pis Jeanneke Pis |
A statue in Brussels depicting a urinating child. And its female counterpart. | |
Märket | A lighthouse built on this island led to a redefinition of the border between Sweden and Finland. | |
Metro-2 | A purported secret metro line in Moscow. | |
Monte Kaolino | A ski resort without snow. | |
Mount Athos | An autonomous polity in Greece home to 20 monasteries, notable for being the only political subdivision in the world in which women (as well as female animals) are prohibited from entering for any reason. | |
Municipalities of Liechtenstein | The blotchy, angular borders between these divisions seem almost arbitrarily strange. The UAE's are similarly weird. | |
Museum of Broken Relationships | Zagreb is home to this collection of things left behind by break-ups. | |
Nelson's Pillar | Dublin used to have its own version of Nelson's Column, that ended up serving as a symbol of British imperialism up until the 1960s, when it was blown up by Irish republicans, leading to the creation of several celebratory folk songs. | |
Neutral Moresnet | A tiny European region – approximately 1.4 square miles (3.6 km2) – that existed for a century as neutral territory between Germany and Belgium. | |
Newhaven Marine railway station | A railway station that was technically open between 2006 and 2020, despite (a) no passenger trains serving the station during that time, (b) an inability to buy tickets to the station and (c) the station itself being demolished in 2017. | |
New York-Dublin Portal | An art exhibit visually connecting the streets of the two cities that was temporarily shut down after multiple instances of flashing, profanities, and showcasing images of the September 11 attacks. | |
Other World Kingdom | A micronation and BDSM resort whose ultimate goal is "absolute matriarchy" – for all men to be enslaved by women. | |
Paradiskullen | A ski jumping hill with a landing area that goes under one of Sweden's busiest railroads. | |
Pheasant Island | An uninhabited river island which switches sovereignty between France and Spain every six months. | |
Piața Romană metro station | A station on the Bucharest Metro that was cancelled because the wife of Nicolae Ceaușescu was worried that the students nearby would get fat and need exercise. It was built in secret anyway and thus opened in 1988. | |
Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station | An unassuming military station in France became a cause célèbre after French Intelligence tried to threaten Wikipedia into deleting its article on it. | |
Predjama Castle | A castle built partially inside the mouth of a nearby cave. | |
Principality of Sealand | A micronation located 6 miles (9.7 km) off the coast of Suffolk, England whose population rarely exceeds ten. | |
Punkendeich | A former dyke that was once the home of prostitutes, and is now the site of a festival where a tailor walks across the river to check if it's frozen. | |
Reality Checkpoint | A lamppost with its own name. | |
Röstigraben | The "Coarsely Grated Potato Ditch" in Switzerland, dividing Swiss-German and Swiss-French cuisine. | |
Saatse Boot | A piece of Russian territory through which a 900-metre (3,000 ft) stretch of Estonian road passes. Although people are allowed to drive on the road without a permit or visa, it is prohibited to travel on foot, or to stop the vehicle for any reason. | |
Schwerbelastungskörper | A piece of Nazi architecture in Berlin, built with the sole purpose of being heavy. | |
Scottish Court in the Netherlands | A former Dutch NATO base called Camp Zeist was briefly ceded to Scotland to enable the trial of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombers. | |
Sedlec Ossuary | A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people. | |
Sexi (Phoenician colony) | An ancient ruins, also known as Sex or Ex, with several Roman-era suburbs, including Pænis, Socordia and Villa Fatuus Maximus. | |
Shell Grotto, Margate | A grotto with a mosaic of 4.6 million seashells, hidden underneath a backyard. Nobody knows who built it, when, or for what purpose. | |
Shit Museum | Don't worry, it's actually a good museum. For looking at excrement. | |
Shitterton | Its sign got stolen so often, they bought a 1.5 tonne stone with the town's name engraved in it. (Surprisingly, that rude name really does mean what you'd think.) | |
Smallest House in Great Britain | Only 5.49 square metres (59.1 sq ft) in size, in North Wales. | |
SnowCastle of Kemi | The world's largest snow fort and ice hotel, constantly rebuilt and redesigned each winter. | |
Sovereign Military Order of Malta | A sovereign state with no land? How is that possible? | |
Spreuerhofstraße | The world's narrowest street. | |
Svalbard Global Seed Vault | If a global famine occurs, you better hope you live in Svalbard. | |
Transnistria | An unrecognized state that broke away from Moldova during the fall of the Soviet Union due to ethnic tensions and has remained in limbo ever since, retaining Soviet-era aesthetics and even a hammer and sickle on its flag. | |
Uffington White Horse | A giant chalk figure that has to be hit with hammers regularly to maintain it. | |
Unst Bus Shelter | The only of its kind on the island of Unst, Shetland. It is periodically refurnished and contains a sofa and TV. | |
Uppland Runic Inscription 53 | An 11th century runestone which got accidental fame by being scavenged for the foundation of a 17th century building in the middle of Stockholm. | |
Vajdahunyad Castle | A castle in Budapest that was originally partially built out of cardboard. | |
Vatican Railway | It consists of a 680-metre (2,230 ft) branch line and was constructed as a direct result of the Vatican's recognition as a country. | |
Vennbahn | A disused railway in Belgium which separates five pieces of Germany from the rest of Germany. | |
Veyshnoria | A nonexistent border country of Belarus invented for a Union State military exercise and adopted by the Internet. It's totally coincidental that the territory of this "enemy state" corresponds to the most Catholic, most anti-Lukashenko, and least Russian-speaking regions of Belarus, honest. | |
Victor Noir | A young journalist killed by the cousin of the French Emperor, who subsequently became a symbol of resistance prior to the fall of the regime... who also got a statue of himself with a massive bulge in his crotch that subsequently became a fertility symbol, with the bulge becoming rusted due to having been fondled by so many members of the public. | |
Vilnius-Lublin Portal | A first-of-its-kind project connecting residents on the streets of the two cities, and the predecessor to a much more chaotic one. | |
Weißwurstäquator | The "White Sausage Equator" in Germany. | |
White's | London's oldest and most famous gentleman's club had several famous people as members, including King Charles III, Prince William, former prime minister David Cameron and so on. The club is pretty much top secret, so yes, the English illuminati definitely aren't lurking and drinking tea there. Also, no girls are allowed. | |
Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate | And the best street name has to go to this street in York, England. Also said to be the shortest street in the city too! | |
Wooden Spoons Museum | A museum with the largest collection of wooden spoons in the world, ranging from 3,500 to over 6,000. Ladles and 500 erasers can also be found! | |
World Map at Lake Klejtrup | After finding a rock shaped like the Jutland peninsula, a Danish farmer was inspired to create a map of the world out of the surrounding countryside over the next 25 years. | |
Wrocław's dwarfs | Gotta catch 'em all! | |
Zeitpyramide | To celebrate the 1200th anniversary of a Bavarian town, one artist decided to stack concrete blocks for 1200 years. The next block is scheduled for 2033. | |
Željava Air Base | An abandoned air base, located on the border between Croatia and Bosnia, that's almost entirely underground. | |
Zone rouge | A series of areas in northeastern France that were so devastated by unexploded ordnance and toxins during World War I that they remain uninhabitable a century later. |
Latin America and the Caribbean
[edit]Americana, São Paulo | A town in Brazil founded by Confederate farmers and soldiers in the aftermath of the American Civil War. | |
Cancún Underwater Museum | A place where works of art are kept several metres beneath sea level. | |
Cândido Godói | A Brazilian town full of Germans that produces five times as many twins as the national average; these two facts combined to create theories that Josef Mengele had conducted experiments there. | |
Cashew of Pirangi | Seventy times larger than an average cashew tree, this tree covers approximately two acres of land by itself. | |
Cherán | A Mexican town where the residents decided to abolish their own local government and police force in 2011 due to rampant corruption and ties to organized crime. They don't appear to have any regrets. | |
Ciudad Mitad del Mundo | This park marking the equator in the country named after it was just a bit off when it was built. | |
Colonia Dignidad | A rural community in Chile that has a story that not even the most insane writer could think of. | |
Darién Gap | This journey is impossible with the modes you have selected. | |
Devil's Island | A notorious penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. | |
Ernst Thälmann Island | An island off the coast of Cuba that was (sort of) ceded to East Germany and thus (sort of) remains part of East Germany, which doesn't exist anymore (sort of). | |
Guarapari | A Brazilian town with beaches that are naturally radioactive. | |
Fordlândia | The man himself was not without his abject failures in Brazil. | |
Friendship Park (San Diego–Tijuana) | Where people can shake hands and interact across the Mexico–United States border. | |
Hacienda Nápoles | The luxurious estate of the deceased drug lord Pablo Escobar, from which an invasive hippopotamus population spread in Colombia. | |
Heladería Coromoto | Held the world record for most ice cream flavors served, including chili, garlic, crab, macaroni and cheese, egg, beef, and many alcoholic flavors. | |
Isla Apipé | An Argentine island in the Paraná River surrounded by Paraguayan waters. | |
Island of the Dolls | Located in Mexico City, this is an island full of broken and deteriorated dolls of various styles and colors, originally placed by the former owner of the island. | |
John Lennon Park | A park with a statue of John Lennon, in a country that used to ban his music in the 60s as it was a Western bloc cultural import. Also noteworthy for the fact that his statue doesn't normally wear glasses, as the glasses on the statue keep getting removed or vandalized, although the park now has a security guard whose job is to hang around near the statue and give him a pair of glasses upon request. | |
Lençóis Maranhenses National Park | Wait, deserts don't seasonally flood. They just don't. Or do they? | |
Mano del Desierto | A massive sculpture of a hand rising from the middle of the Atacama Desert, meant to symbolize human vulnerability and oppression. | |
Nazca Lines | A line museum, exhibited outdoors in southern Peru. | |
El Ojo | An almost perfectly circular, constantly rotating island in the marshes of Argentina. Its name is Spanish for "The Eye". | |
Parícutin | A volcano that suddenly erupted out of a farmer's cornfield. | |
Penedo, Itatiaia | A Finnish resort town... in the middle of Brazil. | |
Pig Beach | A place where you can swim with pigs. | |
Pizza Pacaya | While many would run from an active volcano, one Guatemalan chef turned one into his own personal kitchen. | |
Plymouth, Montserrat | A national capital with zero population, as it was abandoned due to a volcanic eruption. | |
Presidente Hayes Department | What happens when a U.S. President is vastly more famous in a South American country than in the actual United States. | |
Río Rico, Tamaulipas | A city that was ceded by the United States to Mexico in 1977 due to an earlier diversion of the Rio Grande. | |
Santa Cruz del Islote | A tiny artifical island off the coast of Colombia that is said to be the most crowded island on Earth, with its own school, restaurant and other amenities, but without any crime nor police. | |
Spiral Island | An artificial island, now destroyed, built from thousands of empty floating plastic bottles. | |
Vinicunca | Also known as Montaña Arcoíris (Rainbow Mountain), different minerals in the soil of this mountain made it look truly unique. | |
Y Wladfa | A group of settlements in Argentine Patagonia home to the largest Welsh-speaking population outside of the British Isles, and the location of the Patagonian Welsh dialect. | |
Yungas Road | An incredibly deadly mountainside road in Bolivia, only 3 meters wide in places and with no guardrails. |
North America
[edit]11 foot 8+8 Bridge | Also known has the "Can Opener", this is a bridge that slices the roof off of trucks that have fallen victim to it. | |
33 Thomas Street | A windowless skyscraper in New York and suspected NSA mass surveillance hub. Not suspicious at all. | |
A Mountain | Also known as Sentinel Peak, this hill in Tucson, Arizona literally has a big letter "A" on it. | |
Agloe, New York | A fictional town in New York. Originally a phantom settlement, created as a copyright trap for a mapmaker, that ended up developing into an actual landmark. | |
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Lake | Supposedly named after the treatment center nearby. | |
Aroma of Tacoma | "What an incredible smell you've discovered" could have been this Washington city's motto. | |
Aquarius Reef Base | A real-live underwater laboratory. | |
Badlands Guardian | A natural topographic feature in Alberta, Canada, which, when viewed from above, looks remarkably like a human wearing a Native American headdress and earbuds. | |
Beatosu and Goblu | Two non-existent towns that appeared on Michigan's official highway map as a reference to the University of Michigan and its rival, Ohio State University. | |
Big Blue Bug | Officially named Nibbles Woodaway, this 58-foot long termite overlooking I-95 is a Providence landmark and is claimed to be the world's largest artificial bug. | |
Bishop Castle | A rocky castle in the Rocky Mountains! This fire-breathing construction project seems to endlessly... drag on. | |
Borscht Belt | For those who love borscht and find the Bible Belt and Rust Belt too boring. | |
Bubblegum Alley | 70 feet of alleyway with its walls covered in used chewing gum. | |
Bubbly Creek | The branch of the Chicago River that was so contaminated with blood from the Stock Yards that it gained this appetizing moniker. | |
Bullfrog County, Nevada | A former county in Nevada established around a mountain which was to become a radioactive waste disposal site. As of 2022, it is the only uninhabited county-equivalent to ever be created in the United States. | |
Busta Rhymes Island | Otherwise unnamed island because it had "rope-swinging, blueberries, and ... stuff Busta would enjoy." | |
Canusa Street | A road that's in both Canada and USA. | |
Capitol Hill mystery soda machine | A machine that offered rare drinks with nobody knowing who operated it. It was in operation from the 1990s to 2018, when it disappeared and a note was left saying: "Went for a walk". | |
Cat Girl Manor | A manor described as "the Playboy Mansion of the kitten play community". | |
Centralia, Pennsylvania | A town that's been on fire since 1962. | |
Citgo Sign | This advertisement for an oil company was placed in the perfect spot for it to become a recognizable landmark of the Boston skyline. | |
Clinton Road (New Jersey) | In addition to having the longest traffic light in the country, the road is also notorious for reported occurrences of paranormal activity. | |
Colma, California | A town where the dead outnumber the living by 1000 to 1. | |
Conch Republic | As a protest against the actions by the United States federal government, Key West in Florida seceded from and then declared war on the United States, surrendered one minute later and then applied for $1 billion in foreign aid. | |
Corporation Trust Center | A small single-story building where over 285,000 companies, or over 15% of all companies in the United States, are legally based. | |
Crush, Texas | A temporary "city" established as the site of an 1896 publicity stunt, a staged train wreck. The wreck unexpectedly caused two deaths and numerous injuries among spectators. | |
Crazy Horse Memorial | The Native American answer to Mount Rushmore, started in 1948 and still nowhere near completed. | |
Cuyahoga River | Environmentalism in the United States essentially started because a river in Cleveland kept on catching fire. | |
Dave Thomas Circle | A six-way intersection in Northeast D.C. with a Wendy's restaurant located in the middle until 2021. The site of numerous traffic fatalities, it's currently being converted into a city park. | |
Desert of Maine | A 20-acre patch of sand right in the middle of the most forested state in the U.S. | |
Dixie Square Mall | A shopping mall that stood abandoned for over twice as long as it was in business until it was finally demolished in 2012. It was featured in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers and became a popular target for urban explorers. | |
Donald J. Trump State Park | The most tremendous, fantastic, amazing state park you've ever seen. The media wants to say it has poor upkeep, it should be renamed, that it's not even a real state park; but they're all liars and very bad people, believe me. | |
Dorset, Minnesota | A town that, on multiple occasions, has had a child as their "mayor". | |
Dude Chilling Park | Originally a sign placed in a Vancouver park as a prank, now officially recognized public art. | |
eBART | An extension of the BART system that, despite functioning as its own railway line and is powered by unique diesel trains, is officially shown as an extension of the Yellow Line. | |
Exorcist steps | A set of steps in 36th Street most famous for having the character of Father Karras fall to his death after being possessed. | |
Fenelon Place Elevator | The shortest and steepest railroad in the world, (supposedly) located in a town of around 60,000 people. | |
Florence Y'all Water Tower | A Northern Kentucky town's unique "welcome" sign. | |
Foamhenge | An exact recreation of Stonehenge made entirely out of styrofoam. | |
List of former counties, cities, and towns of Virginia | All the places that are no longer found in Virginia, such as Illinois County, and a few that never were (including Walton's Mountain). | |
Gann Valley, South Dakota | The county seat of Buffalo County, South Dakota, despite nearby Fort Thompson having a population more than 120 times larger than Gann Valley. | |
Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport | Consists entirely of a deeply rutted unmanned strip of soil/gravel and a windsock. | |
Gum Wall | A brick wall in Seattle burdened by chewing gum. Cleaned in 2015, only to be turned into a memorial for Paris. | |
Habitat 67 | A futuristic residential complex built in the 1960s that resembles a mass of cuboids haphazardly balanced on top of each other. | |
Hans Island | A deserted Arctic island fought over by Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark for decades. The 2022 settlement created a land border between a North American and a European country. | |
Hawaii 2 | A quaint island in Maine purchased by Cards Against Humanity in 2014. | |
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump | Life lesson: if you see hunters chasing buffalo off a cliff, don't stand at the bottom. | |
Hess triangle | This used to be part of a bigger plot of land but a road destroyed it but the planners couldn't plan correctly so it left this piece of land. | |
Holy Land Experience | A defunct Christian theme park built next to Disneyworld that has been accused to trying to convert Jewish visitors.
Also a great Loo Loo Land alternative. | |
Horace Burgess's Treehouse | A tree house built by a minister who claimed to have received a vision from God. | |
Indianapolis Catacombs | Despite the name, never used as a burial place. | |
Interstate 180 (Wyoming) | An Interstate Highway that isn't really a freeway at all. | |
Interstate 19 | The only U.S. highway marked in metric units, a relic of a historical push for metrication. | |
Island of California | The third-largest U.S. state was formerly an island – at least on paper. | |
Jackass Flats | The aptly named test site for the world's first and only nuclear-powered rocket engines. | |
Jerimoth Hill | The highest natural point in Rhode Island. For years, one of the toughest highpoints in the U.S. to scale, not because of its 812-foot (247 m) height, but because of an angry old man who lived nearby. | |
John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant | A sewage plant in Danbury, Connecticut named after John Oliver after he satirically insulted the city on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. | |
Joker Stairs | We live in a society where a movie can make a star out of flight of stairs. | |
Just Room Enough Island | This island is about one-thirteenth of an acre in size but that didn't stop the Sizeland family from building a house on it. | |
Lake Peigneur | A 10-foot-deep swimming lake at one time, it was turned into the deepest lake in Louisiana thanks to a salt mining accident. | |
Landsat Island | A lonesome island with a frankly humorous tale. | |
List of gaps in Interstate Highways | Traffic-lighted intersections, drawbridges, and other oddities in the Interstate Highway System which violate the standards. | |
List of Las Vegas casinos that never opened | What happened on the drawing board stayed on the drawing board. | |
Lizzie Borden House | The location of one of the most famous ax murders in history, which was turned into a B&B in 1996. According to the building's former owner, the room where Abby Borden was murdered is its "most requested room." | |
London Bridge | An over century year old authentic English bridge...that now resides in the middle of the desert. | |
M-185 (Michigan highway) | The only state highway in the country that bans motor vehicles. It's also the only state highway to not have an accident until 2005. | |
Mary Ellis grave | A grave that found itself in the middle of a movie theater parking lot. | |
Memphis Pyramid | The tenth-largest pyramid in the world, located in Memphis, Tennessee, and home to a Bass Pro Shops megastore. | |
Michigan left | Directions are more complicated in Michigan. | |
Mickey pylon | A powerline pylon with a shape reminiscent of a certain fictional rodent. | |
Mill Ends Park | The smallest park in the world – 452 in2 (0.292 m2) – in Portland, Oregon. | |
Mojave phone booth | A public phone booth that stood for several decades in the middle of a desert, miles away from any roads or other structures. | |
Mountain Home Air Force Base | A Singaporean air force base in Idaho. | |
Mollie's Nipple | The name of multiple places in Utah... including at least one butte. | |
Monowi | A village in Nebraska with a population of one. Hi, Elsie! | |
Mr. Trash Wheel | A trash interceptor with giant googly eyes that patrols the Baltimore Inner Harbor, consuming trash. Has its own Instagram page. | |
Murder Kroger | A supermarket with a dark story. | |
Nataqua Territory | A failed U.S. territory that was, quite literally, beside itself. | |
National Mustard Museum | Collecting and chronicling the common condiment. | |
National Raisin Reserve | Created after World War II to control raisin prices. Run by the Raisin Administrative Committee, of course. | |
Ned Flanders Crossing | A bridge over Interstate 405 in Portland, Oregon, which was originally called Flanders Crossing, but was renamed after a fictional character himself named after the road. | |
Nettilling Lake | Located on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It's the largest lake on an island and also contains the largest lake on an island on a lake on an island, which in turn contains the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island. | |
New York-Dublin Portal | An art exhibit visually connecting the streets of the two cities that was temporarily shut down after multiple instances of flashing, profanities, and showcasing images of the September 11 attacks. | |
Nitt Witt Ridge | A house in California, built out of beer cans, abalone shells, car parts, and other garbage previously tossed out by local residents, is now a historic landmark. | |
Northeast Greenland National Park | The world's largest national park consists of over a quarter of Greenland's total land area, is larger than 166 sovereign states, and has no permanent human population. | |
Northwest Angle | This little spoke jutting out of northern Minnesota was created as the result of a surveying error, and its land is completely cut off from the rest of the U.S. by the Lake of the Woods. | |
Old Man of the Mountain | A rock formation in northern New Hampshire resembling the side profile of a person. Collapsed in 2003, but is immortalized on the state's license plates, highway signs and state quarter. | |
Peter Camani | A (now retired) Canadian art teacher who built a massive complex of sculptures of screaming faces on his property in his spare time, and converted his house into a castle with a turret of a screaming face. | |
Point Roberts, Washington | When defining international boundaries, sometimes a straight line isn't the best solution. | |
Polar Bear Holding Facility | A prison for polar bears. | |
Poozeum | A museum dedicated to coprolites. | |
Prada Marfa, Texas | For your luxury shopping bug, a Prada store in the desert. | |
— | Pyramid mausoleums in North America | Arizona Governor George Hunt will hereafter be addressed as "Pharaoh George I". |
Rabbit Hash, Kentucky | A town whose mayors, since 1998, have all been dogs. | |
Raising of Chicago | During the 1850s, the city was raised on jacks, building by building. | |
Rainbow Farm | The only place where gay married couples could guard their marijuana plants with guns. Notably visited by Merle Haggard and Tommy Chong. | |
Republic of Indian Stream | An area of land in northern New Hampshire that was an independent country from 1832 to 1835. | |
Republic of Molossia | A 34-person micronation in Nevada which takes the meaning of the phrase "a man's home is his castle" to new extremes. | |
Rock N Roll McDonald's | A rock 'n roll-themed McDonald's restaurant located in Chicago, famous for being the subject of a song by outsider musician Wesley Willis. | |
Rocky Steps | Thanks to their appearance in a certain movie, the steps leading up to the main entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is as popular of a tourist attraction as the museum itself. | |
Rough and Ready, California | This mining town seceded from the Union in 1850, but came back three months later because they realised they couldn't celebrate Independence Day. | |
Santa Claus, Arizona | In Mohave County, visit an abandoned tourist trap deep in the desert where Santa Claus, of all people, allegedly resides! | |
Sam Kee Building | Known as the world's narrowest commercial building. | |
Slab City, California | A massive off-the-grid trailer park on a former military base in the Sonoran Desert, that became a large-scale alternative community of misfits and wanderers that has persisted for decades, complete with various displays of colourful experimental sculptures made from whatever the residents can get their hands on. | |
S.N.P.J., Pennsylvania | A municipality consisting solely of a Slovenian fraternity's recreation center, established (in part) to get around liquor laws. | |
State of Franklin | A proposed state in Eastern Tennessee that tried its hand at independence and fell into debt to Spain. | |
State of Scott | Scott County in northern Tennessee seceded and formed its own state in opposition to Tennessee joining the Confederacy. It remained this way for over a century until it rejoined Tennessee in 1986. | |
Statue of Lenin (Seattle) | How a statue of Lenin made its way from Czechoslovakia to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. | |
Texas State Highway 165 | The only state highway in the country specifically designated to serve a cemetery...and nothing more. It's also the only state highway in the country to be partially closed every night. | |
The Greenbrier | A luxury resort that, for three decades, housed an emergency bunker for Congress to work from if a nuclear war broke out. | |
Track 61 (New York City) | A secret train platform located below the Waldorf Astoria New York designed for use by U.S. Presidents when they would visit the hotel. | |
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico | A New Mexico town that chose to rename itself after the Truth or Consequences game show in 1950, then never bothered changing back. | |
U Thant Island | An island in the East River with a surprisingly in-depth history for only being 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in area. | |
U.S. Route 19 Truck (Pittsburgh) | A road in Pittsburgh that features a number of wrong way concurrencies, including one with itself. | |
Vulcan Bridge | A bridge in rural West Virginia whose repairs were almost funded by the Soviet Union after a local mayor, tired of the West Virginia state government ignoring his requests for funding, reached out across the Iron Curtain. | |
Weather Station Kurt | That time when the Nazis landed in North America. | |
Wedge | It's harder than you think to construct the state of Delaware with a ruler and compass. | |
Whittier, Alaska | A city in Alaska where (almost) all of its residents live in one building: Begich Towers. | |
Winchester Mystery House | A house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles. | |
World's littlest skyscraper | The result of a fraudulent investment scheme, it's a four-story brick building constructed in 1920 in downtown Wichita Falls, Texas that has only one room on each of its four floors. | |
Zilwaukee, Michigan | "Is this Milwaukee?" "Uh...yeah, it sure is!" | |
Zone of Death | The part of Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, where any crime can technically be committed without punishment – but don't tempt fate! |
Oceania
[edit]American Samoa | Despite having a functional legislature (the Fono) and a population of 46,366, American Samoa is considered an 'unincorporated unorganized' territory. It is also the only U.S. territory where people are not automatically born citizens, despite much of the population being involved in the military. | |
Baldwin Street | A short suburban road in Dunedin, New Zealand, reputedly the world's steepest street. | |
Ball's Pyramid | A nearly 600-metre-tall (2,000 ft) stone stack in the middle of the ocean. | |
Banjawarn Station | Did a Japanese apocalypse cult test a nuke in the middle of rural Australia? | |
Bayswater Subway | Bridge in Perth that has been hit by trucks 50 times between 2014 and 2020. | |
Burning Mountain | A straightforwardly named mountain that has been on fire for over 6000 years. | |
Cardrona Bra Fence | An eccentric tourist attraction in New Zealand. | |
Coober Pedy | A mining town where most of the residents live underground. | |
Concrete bus shelters in Canberra | These brutalist cylindrical bus shelters are an icon of Australia's capital city. | |
Egmont National Park | This national park's boundaries created a circular forest. | |
Horizontal Falls | This pair of Australian "waterfalls" appear to be falling straight across the land. | |
Hundertwasser Toilets | Why the town of Kawakawa is the world's best place for a rest stop. | |
Hunga Tonga | An island that was created in 2015 after a volcano erupted between two islands and connected them until another volcanic explosion in 2022 split them up again. | |
Jellyfish Lake | A lake where jellyfish have evolved without stingers due to a lack of predators. | |
Jervis Bay Territory | Briefly ceded to the ACT to give it access to the sea despite not bordering the ACT. | |
Kalawao County, Hawaii | The second-least populous county in the United States (after Loving County, Texas), with a population of 90 as of the 2010 United States Census. Established as a leper colony in 1866, it occupies a peninsula on Molokai and is not connected by road to the rest of the island. | |
Kingman Reef | It's designated as its own US overseas territory despite having an area of only 0.03 square kilometres (0.012 sq mi) and being almost entirely underwater during low tide. | |
Macquarie Island | The only place on earth where rocks from the Earth's mantle get exposed to the surface. | |
Montague Street Bridge | A bridge in Melbourne that has had so many trucks crash into it and get stuck under it, the government used millions of dollars to install prevention measures (it did nothing). | |
Mount Wycheproof | Considered a mountain when only 43 metres (141 ft) above surrounding terrain and 143 metres (469 ft) above sea level. There are parts of Sydney which have a higher elevation and are not considered a mountain. | |
Murray Valley Highway | A 671-kilometre (417 mi) road that has a road route number of B400 for 668 kilometres (415 mi) in the Victorian section and unmarked for 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in the New South Wales section making the Victorian road network not connected to the New South Wales Network in that area. | |
Nelson–Blenheim notional railway | A road that was officially considered to be a railway by the New Zealand Government for 22 years. | |
New Zealand State Highway 78 | A road in Timaru, New Zealand, that is designated a highway despite being only 900 metres (3,000 ft) long. | |
Ninety Mile Beach | A 55-mile beach. | |
Octopolis and Octlantis | A pair of settlements built by octopuses, discovered on the seabed off the coast of the aforementioned Jervis Bay. | |
Palmyra Atoll | The United States' only 'incorporated unorganized' territory, despite there being no government and virtually no permanent residents for the Constitution to apply to... | |
Pitcairn Islands | A British Overseas Territory where the entire population is Seventh-day Adventist and descended from the mutineers from the HMS Bounty. The entire population moved to Norfolk Island for three years in the 1850s and is currently at risk of going extinct due to the high number of emigrants. Also the site of a scandal where 13 Pitcairn Islands men, almost a third of the islands' population, were convicted in a sex abuse scandal, giving the islands the highest rate of sex offenders in the world. | |
Pink Lake | A lake that is naturally pink, but suddenly turned blue in 2010. | |
Princes Freeway (east) | A freeway with houses, traffic lights, and a 60-kilometre-per-hour (37 mph) limit in some areas. What are VicRoads thinking? | |
Carstensz Pyramid | The tallest mountain in Australia is administrated by the Republic of Indonesia. | |
Sandy Island | An island which was shown on Google Maps satellite view until 2012 despite not existing. | |
That Wānaka Tree | A tree named after a hashtag on Instagram. | |
Taumata | With a full name consisting of 85 characters, this hill may be the longest place name in the world. | |
Te Urewera | A forested area in New Zealand that is also a legal person (see below). | |
Whanganui River | A river in New Zealand that is legally a person. | |
Wedding Cake Rock | A rock that looks exactly like a wedding cake. | |
Whangamōmona | A township in New Zealand that also happens to be a self-declared republic, whose past presidents include a goat and a poodle. |