Nullarbor
La Loire
Weekends from Trieste
Arabia
Cascade Region
Plains of Tidikelt
Glacial Lake Agassiz
Brazos
From the Rio Grande to the Mississippi, the coast of Texas has a pleasing arch with plentiful barrier islands and lagoons, coastal marshes and swamps. Inland 100 miles, however, the flat plains and lazy river valleys climb into a rolling, dissected landscape. Local relief and choppiness are quite uniform over a wide area. High densities… Read more »
Susquehanna
Most of Papua
Escarpments
The geometry of East Africa’s rift troughs seemed impossibly complex, until Shuttle-based elevation data allowed such views as this in 2005. From the north of Kenya to central Zimbabwe, rift trends cross and pass under each other like a roller coaster. Colors range from torrid down low to the moderate greens of the most temperate… Read more »
Part of Down Under
End of the Mountains
Headwaters
South of France
North Britain
Balkan Parts
Centering on the lower Danube with its feathery tributaries, this palette was designed to isolate the tallest hills while staying fairly quiet and a bit on the sad side. Low seashores are made indistinct, and the gray tones are surprisingly readable in distinguishing the degree of local dissection. This is a topographically complex part of… Read more »
Columbia
Clark’s Fork
Crossroads
Land of Edges
More of the Colorado Plateau is found in Arizona than in any of the other four corner states. In this elevation graphic it forms a broad green platform for a variety of different mountain types: the massive volcanoes at lower right, the cone fields of the center, long mesas near the upper edge, and the… Read more »
Ireland
Far to the East
The spatial isolation of Japan and Korea is clear from this rendition of elevations stretching from Taiwan to Kamchatka. The mainland is marked by the courses of the Yangtze River on the left and the Amur River on the right. Major volcanoes are obvious in North Korea, Honshu and Hokkaido, and on the many island… Read more »
Caribees
The three dominant islands of the Caribbean are very different. Cuba’s eastern two-thirds is modest in its variety of terrain, but both Jamaica and Hispanola are rifted and surprisingly complex, with abrupt basins and limestone plateaus. The larger pair have shore terrace systems near their eastern ends, which hints at onslaughts from the sea, perhaps… Read more »
Malay
Italia
Forgotten Land
Westerners have spoken of Darkest Africa as if there is no light there, which is only part true for the tiny portion (< 5%) with closed-canopy rain forest. The palette of this elevation-only view is gray to evoke the lack of familiarity, and the coasts use a bloody set of hues to remember their violent… Read more »