12 Geography Facts That Will Blow your Mind

Geography: The anatomy of Earth

Studying the anatomy of our home planet is as interesting as it is important. Scientists have given their time and voyagers, their lives to chart the Earth and map it with the rudimentary tools they had hundreds of years ago. Studying geography is like knowing the physiology of our body, except we are examining the body of Earth, so to speak. Geography is not just the study of countries and borders. Geography facts for kids teach them about the weather and climate change, about water bodies and mountains. 

Essentially, a child with a good score in geography is far likely to know more about the world than a 50-year-old person. Children interested in geography facts for kids are also travelers, as they would want to explore what they have studied. From something as beautiful as white sand beaches to witnessing the seething lava gushing out of a volcano, they would have knowledge about most of the alluring, weird, and scary stories of the world. 

Importance of learning geography facts for kids:

Like most things we have achieved so far as a species, we eventually have to give that responsibility to our children. We have done many great things: put a man on the moon, constructed a building as big as a football field over our planet, photographed atoms and black holes. Pretty commendable things we have achieved. But one thing that we have ruined for our future is our planet itself. Its climate is at the brink of collapse, sea levels rising, and our platelet getting hotter by second. If something is not done and done fast, the world will become irreparable, and so many mass extinctions will follow, humans the only reason for the blame.

Since climate change and weather patterns come under geography, it is crucial for each and every child to learn about our now-fragile planet so that they would do anything in their power to contribute less to its destruction and maybe even help reverse it.

Now that we have established that geography is a rather important subject to be taught, how do you make your children notice it in the first place? We got a list of cool geography facts for kids that you can share with your little one to pique his/her interest in the subject. Who knows? Maybe the interest we induce today in your child will transform him into the person who is going to reverse the damages his ancestors had done to their home. So without further ado…

Cool geography facts for kids to blow their minds:

• Though 70% of our planet is covered with water, only 5% of its oceans have been explored. We know more about space than we do about our oceans. 
• Oceans have $771 trillion worth of gold in their water. However, its concentration is so little that recovering gold from the oceans would cost more than the gold itself.
• Guess what the driest desert in the world is? Sahara? Thar? Nope. It is Antarctica. Contrary to what most people think, a desert is not something that should be deluged in the sand. Desert is defined by the amount of rainfall it gets, and Antarctica gets the lowest raining fall of any landmass in the world. 

• About one-fifth of the land on the Earth is mountains; 12% of the entire population of the world lives in the mountains.
• From east to west, Australia stretches 4000 km. The diameter of the moon is 3400 km. Yup, Australia is wider than the moon.
• You know that continents merge or separate over millions of years. It seems pretty slow, right? Well, they move at the same rate as your fingernails grow. Now it doesn’t seem so slow, does it? 
• Imagine all the life forms on the land: chicken, cows, ants, and trillions of others. Yet, aquatic animals constitute a higher ratio of life than what’s on the land.

• We know Mount Everest is the tallest in the world. But what about the longest? It is not even on land. The longest mountain chain in the world is Mid-Ocean Ridge, stretching a distance of 65,000 km.
• Thanks to global warming, the ocean is getting hotter and hotter. As elementary school chemistry would have taught you, water expands when hot. Combine this with the melting of ice, and you see the sea level increasing. Many famous cities like Venice, NYC, and London will be submerged in the not-so-distant future. Indonesia is already moving its capital city, Jakarta, as it is sinking 25 cms into the sea every year.

• Aurora borealis, known as northern lights, is a beautiful display of natural disco lights, shining rainbow-colored across the night sky. This majestic phenomenon is formed when Earth’s magnetic field interacts with charged particles from the Sun.
• Though we love trees for many reasons, releasing the most oxygen to the atmosphere is not one among them. Oceans–algae in the oceans specifically–is the cause of 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere.
• Antarctica, which has the highest elevation of all the seven continents, contains 90% of the world ice, holding 70% of fresh water in them.

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