Places
Passes: the few places you can get through a mountain range
A mountain range is a wall with a small number of doors, and everything — trade, armies, languages, disease — has had to go through them.
Topic
geography
Every Kohopoho article tagged geography — 4 pieces across 1 section.
Places
Delta cities: built on ground that is still arriving
A large share of the world’s biggest cities sit on river deltas, which are the most fertile, most connected and least stable ground available.
Places
Islands make different rules
Isolation does specific things to language, biology and social organisation, and island communities across the world have arrived at similar solutions to similar constraints.
Places
Why old towns are built high, and what happens when the reason goes
Hilltop settlements across the Mediterranean, the Andes and the Himalaya share a logic that stopped applying about two centuries ago. The buildings did not move.