travel – Super Facts

United States, Europe and the Pacific Ocean Are Bigger Than You Might Think

Superfact 11: United States, Europe and the Pacific Ocean Are Bigger Than You Might Think

The area of the United States is around 9,8 million square kilometers
The area of continental United States is around 8.1 million square kilometers
The area of Europe is around 10.2 million square kilometers
Earth’s total land area is 148.9 million square kilometers
The area of the Pacific Ocean is 165.3 million square kilometers
The area of the whole earth is 510 million square kilometers

The United States

The United States is much bigger than many Europeans think. Europe is much bigger than many Americans think. Many of us don’t realize that one of the five oceans, the Pacific Ocean, is one third of earth’s entire surface and cover a larger area than all landmass on earth. Since so many of us are surprised to hear these facts and they are not under dispute among experts, they constitute a super-fact, or a few super-facts in my opinion.

Some time ago I was talking to a Swedish friend of mine who told me something along the lines of “the United States isn’t so big as they say. We drove through half a dozen states in an afternoon.” I asked her, “which states?” It turns out that was the New England states, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and finally New Jersey and New York (New York city). You can do that drive in an afternoon, but you cannot drive through Texas in an afternoon, not even in a day.

The distance from Texarkana to El Paso is 1,300 kilometers and takes more than 12 hours to drive on the highway without stopping. I’ve come across many Europeans who underestimate the size of the United States. The mistake they make is that they don’t realize that while some US states are small, other states are much bigger. Just look at the map.

Europe

Interestingly Americans often make the same mistake about Europe. I quite often hear Americans claim that distances are so small in Europe. You can drive through a country in a couple of hours and the language changes. It’s a trope that seems to be repeated every time Europe is discussed on social networks.

Today, as I was talking to a friend of mine about our recent trip to Sweden and Norway, my friend told me that it was good that distances in Europe were so short so we could easily travel between the places I was telling him about. He was more than surprised to hear that was not the case. The distance between where we were Sweden and Norway was too large for anything other than planes considering we only had 10 days.

The distance from Malmö in southern Sweden to Karesuando in northern Sweden is more than 1,900 kilometers and takes more than 21 hours to drive without stopping. In fact, by area, Sweden is bigger and longer than California.

The Pacific Ocean

Last but not least. Earth has seven continents (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia), and five oceans (the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern (Antarctic) Oceans). But just one ocean, the Pacific Ocean cover a third of earth’s entire surface. This may come as a surprise to many. See the globe photorealistic 3d illustration below.

Earth Pacific Ocean view Stock Illustration ID: 1617553012 by Matis75.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Sweden and Denmark and Gustav I Vasa

I am currently traveling in Scandinavia with my oldest son and his wife. Therefore, my blogging activities are a little bit less intense than usual. This post is factual, but it is not a super-fact post.

Yesterday, we visited Uppsala, a city north of Stockholm. Uppsala is Sweden’s fourth largest city, and it is the home to one of Europe’s most prominent universities, Uppsala University. This is also where I studied engineering physics before coming to the United States.

The largest cathedral in Sweden, Uppsala Domkyrka. This is where Gustav I Vasa is buried. Gustav I is arguably Sweden’s most prominent king.

During the Viking era Uppsala was the religious center of Sweden. Later as Sweden became Christian it remained the religious center of Sweden, however, the Viking temple in old Uppsala was replaced by a Christian church. Sweden’s largest cathedral, Uppsala Domkyrka, is located in Uppsala. Inside Uppsala Domkyrka is the tomb of the king that is considered to be the father of Sweden, Gustav I Vasa.

The relationships between the Scandinavian countries were quite complicated in the past, especially that between Sweden and Denmark. If you do a google search using the phrase “which two countries fought the most wars with each other” the top results all claim that this was Sweden and Denmark. The websites in question, Quora, Twitter and Reddit, aren’t reliable sources, so this may not be true. However, more reliable sources, such as historical sites, encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia state that Sweden and Denmark fought at least 11 wars with each other.

Denmark vs Sweden. The yellow and blue flag is the Swedish flag. Red and white is the Danish. Shutterstock Stock Photo ID: 1114320377 by Hasanov Jeyhun.

In 1397 a union was formed between Denmark, Norway and Sweden called the Kalmar Union (Kalmar is a city a Sweden). The Kalmar Union came to be dominated by Denmark and eventually Sweden rebelled against the Danish King Christian II. He was called Christian the Good in Denmark and Christian the Tyrant in Sweden.

This rebellion was led by a noble, Gustav Eriksson who later would be crowned as Gustav I Vasa. He was the first of the Vasa kings. Sweden declared its independence from Denmark on June 6^th, 1523, which is why June 6^th is Sweden’s national day, or Independence Day.

The Kalmar Union. Finland was part of Sweden at the time. Ssolbergj, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Painting of Gustav I Vasa. Fashion was somewhat different back in the day.

Sweden and Denmark had a complicated history that included a lot of hostilities and wars, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at the situation today. There hasn’t been a war between Sweden and Denmark in more than 180 years and Swedes and Danes get along very well, well as long as you don’t talk too much about the past. In my opinion Swedes and Danes get along better than Texans and Oklahomans. Maybe it helps that Swedes can’t understand what the Danes are saying.

The tomb of Gustav I Vasa in Uppsala Domkyrka. In the background is my son and his wife.

To see the Super Facts click here

Vasa Museum Stockholm

This is not a Super Fact post, but it features some interesting facts that have to do with the Vasa Museum Stockholm. It is a bit of trivia and not shocking or disputed information. I am currently traveling in Scandinavia with my oldest son and his wife. This is why I have not been active blogging for a while. By the way, today is his birthday.

This post is about the Swedish warship Vasa. Vasa (or Wasa) was built between 1626 and 1628, and it tipped and sank on its maiden voyage. It was the largest war ship in the world at the time. The cold and brackish waters of this part of the Baltic were free from shipworms and the ship was only 32 meters down below. This made it possible to salvage the ship with a largely intact hull, which was done in 1961.

The Vasa Museum with its huge and impressive 400-year-old war ship is open to the public and a visit does not take long. It is one of the easy must-see destinations for visitors to Stockholm. It is an example of how a big fiasco can be turned into a wonder of the world.

The War Ship Vasa sank in 1628 and salvaged in 1961. It is very well preserved and is on display to the public at the Vasa Museum Stockholm. This photo is taken from a distance. It is not my photo.

At the time there was a big war in Europe, the thirty-year war, fought mainly between protestants and catholic regions. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million people died in this war. Sweden got involved in this war on the protestant side and fought Poland and Lithuania. This war served as a motivation for building Vasa. The reason the Vasa ship tipped over was that the center of gravity was too high. There were too many cannons, ornaments, and the large hull, basically too much stuff, too high up.

An enhanced photo of the Vasa Ship from the museum.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the bottom floor. My son is standing on the right in a green and black shirt.

A note regarding the photos below. I could not find a spot in the museum where I could take an unobstructed photo of the entire ship. So my photos just shows parts of the ship.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the third floor and on the other side (my photo).

A photo of the Vasa ship from the second floor and more from the front. I was walking around the ship and taking photos.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the back. They removed all the ornaments and placed them separately. This was not always the case. This is my photo.

This is just picture hanging in the museum. It shows how the back of the ship once looked like.

A model of the ship showing how it once looked like. This model is part of the museum exhibit (my photo).

An older photo of the Vasa ship (not mine). It is taken from the side so you can see the whole ship.

It should be noted that the conservators learned some lessons as they tried to conserve the ship. They pioneered many new methods and succeeded in solving many difficult problems. However, they found that using the conserving agent PEG was not a good idea. The iron originally concentrated in specific areas in the wood was spread over the entire ship. The consequences of this became apparent decades later.

Other things they found when they salvaged the ship were the anchors and skeletons.

Once when we visited the Vasa Museum, I bought a children’s book that they sold at the museum called The Vasa Piglet. The story was about a pig who was brought onto the ship to be slaughtered and eaten. However, the ship tipped and sank but the pig saved itself by climbing the mast, sitting in the mast platform for a while before swimming to shore. The piglet survived, and no one ever tried to eat him again. Therefore, he lived happily ever after, but no one else did. It seemed like a cute story to me, but my daughter claims she was traumatized by this book. She was fearful of boats for several years afterwards.

Photo of the front cover of the children’s book the Vasa Piglet.