OpenCage ๐๐RE: https://en.osm.town/@opencage/112609360702739218
The World Cup has started, so probably fitting that we reshare our thread about the #geoweirdness of โฝ football (or "soccer", if that's your cup of tea)
Tomorrow eve (3 June) is the first Geomob Dublin ๐ฎ๐ช, our very own @freyfogle is among the speakers, with a talk about โThe joy of geocodingโ. #geomobDUB
Reason enough for us to reshare our thread about Irish #geoweirdness
We hope to see you in Dublin!
OpenCage ๐๐ (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Irish ๐ฎ๐ช #geoweirdness, secrets strange and bold, across the isle, an odd tale to be told. Cork to Donegal, we'll unveil it all - in this thread, the story will unfold. 1/
This week's episode of the @geomob podcast was an interview with Elena Field of the British Antarctic Survey about the challenges of mapping Antarctica
https://thegeomob.com/podcast/episode-339
It's an interesting discussion and also a fitting reason for us to reshare our thread about the #geoweirdness of the southern continent
Today is Ascension Day, which of course means our thoughts turn to ... the remote territory (pop. ~800) of Ascension Island in the south Atlantic, part of the ๐ฌ๐ง British Overseas Territory of ๐ธ๐ญ Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
We covered the various British Overseas Territories in a #geoweirdness thread a few years back:
https://en.osm.town/@opencage/110288036094504869
We're only a few days away from one of the key pop events of the year: Eurovision! ๐บ๐
This year the event is hosted by Austria ๐ฆ๐น and there is more geopolitical drama than ever with 5 countries ๐ฎ๐ธ ๐ฎ๐ช๐ณ๐ฑ๐ธ๐ฎ๐ช๐ธ boycotting to protest the participation of ๐ฎ๐ฑ
A fitting reason for us to resurface our #geoweirdness thread about the bizarre geographic complexities of the song contest - which this year celebrates its 70th anniversary
OpenCage ๐๐ (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image Are you ready for the most fabulous, glitzy, glamorous #geoweirdness thread of all time? ๐บ๐๐ค Here in Europe there's only one thing on everyone's mind this week: the annual Eurovision Song contest. Let's consider the bizarre geographic aspects of this cultural phenomenon https://eurovision.tv/event/basel-2025 #eurovision #eurovision2025 1/
13/ ๐จ Bonus toot ๐จ
Long time followers will recall that we covered the "special relationship" between Cyprus ๐จ๐พ and Greece ๐ฌ๐ท when it comes to the Eurovision Song Contest in our #geoweirdness thread last year about Eurovision ๐บ
OpenCage ๐๐ (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image 8/ Often the voting is not based on musical merit, but instead based on ethnic diaspora, political alliances, or cultural ties. The most famous example is Greece ๐ฌ๐ท and Cyprus ๐จ๐พ, which have a long history of awarding each other the max 12 points. It caused quite the stir in 2015 when this didn't happen: https://eurovisionary.com/frustrations-greece-cyprus-not-exchanging-usual12points/ There have been research papers written about Eurovision voting biases https://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/21/1/1.html
This time in #geoweirdness we turn our focus to the eastern Mediterranean - join us for a look at the geopolitical oddities of the island of Cyprus
1/
3/ Map lovers will note that the country is one of only two to feature a map on its flag, the other being Kosovo ๐ฝ๐ฐ
The flag features the entire island of Cyprus, despite the Republic not controlling the entire island
5/ To stop the fighting there is a United Nations ๐บ๐ณ buffer zone between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. In rural areas the buffer zone can be quite wide, but it can also be as narrow as street when passes directly through Nicosia, the island's largest city (and capital of the Republic of Cyprus ๐จ๐พ)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus
The Buffer Zone is one of four territories in the world administered by the UN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_administered_by_the_United_Nations
6/ For the sake of #geoweirdness we need to mention that Northern Cyprus includes the tiny pene-exclave of Erenkรถy / Kokkina on the northern coast.
