Fun Gazetteer facts

I meant to add this earlier today, but I had to do some work for my real job.

Uploading 15.4 million place records into Weather Now revealed some unexpected statistics. As you might expect from a military website, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency got a lot of its data from military sources. And the military tends to map things they care about in great detail. So the top 10 countries by place counts turn out to be:

1. China, 2.1 million
2. United States, 1.1 million
3. Russia, 857,000
4. Iran, 686,000
5. Indonesia, 543,000
6. Thailand, 530,000
7. Finland, 495,000
8. Mexico, 490,000
9. Republic of Korea, 346,000
10. Afghanistan, 343,000

The top 5 states by USGS place count might surprise you, too:

1. California, 52,700
2. Texas, 43,300
3. Oregon, 36,800
4. Tennessee, 33,400
5. Arkansas, 29,800

Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, the 3rd through 6th most populous states, come in at 19th, 11th, 8th, and 33rd, respectively. I have no idea why.

And the smallest places? All of these NGIA files had fewer than 8 locations—probably because they contain places that are really part of some other country:

1. Dramana and Shakhatoe, 1
2. Kalapani, 1
3. Minerva Reefs, 1
4. Conejo Island, 2
5. Geyser Reef, 2
6. Hans Island, 2
7. Siachen, 2

I honestly don't know why NGIA puts those places in their own files. I'll correct them eventually.

If you want to have a bit of fun, try searching for places you know and see what weather is closest.

What, no details on North Sentinel Island? Shocked, I am, shocked! I'm genuinely surprised you didn't say anything about Gene Hackman yet.