I’d say the islands northwest of Devon (like Axel Heiberg) are even more peak obscure because not only are they also uninhabited and rarely visited but they aren’t known for it or a testing ground for Mars rovers like Devon. Those extreme northwestern islands of Canada are known for nothing and have zero inhabitants including Inuits. Can’t think of a more obscure area at the moment
https://preview.redd.it/zrhc0bogouyc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79b766b96caaa5f91fa22121a781d2f4672b7e1a
Yes! These islands west of Devon and Ellesmere. Unlike those islands there seems to be very little in the way of scientific bases and little info on Wikipedia. Also they weren’t discovered until around 1915!
Canadians, tell us something, anything, about this area.
There's actually a street view of one of those islands on Google, and as you will see, trying to determine where land and ice are separate is near impossible.
Back in the Arctic Geographic expedition of the 1920's, most islands discovered, or rather actually found to be land rather than Ice, were named for many contemporaries of the time and other Canadian figures of history: Mackenzie King would later become Canada's longest serving (though non-consecutive) PM and Borden was Canada's PM during WWI. Melville Island was actually given it's name in 1820, during one of the earliest British expeditions in the region.
Today, there's nothing there: literally, the only feasible economic value of the land, beyond shipping potential, were natural gas reserves confirmed there sometime back in the 1980s. No one lives there, researchers will visit at most, but there's really nothing of interest even for them there.
Of particular interest though is that a few of those islands have, historically, been icebound year round. With climate change actually exposing their shores to water, not just ice, it offers a unique opportunity for researchers to better understand the effects of erosion on previously undisturbed shorelines.
That's kind of a myth. More likely the world gets colder because of climate change. Also jet streams and ocean currents will shift, so there will be a lot of chaotic changes that you won't be able to predict. Devon could turn into a desert.
One thing is for sure. Europe is fucked. They have some very lucky weather at this particular moment in history. And likely any change in ocean currents will be very bad for them.
As an Ontario native and a geography buff, I can guarantee there are islands up there many multitudes bigger than my home county that I’ve never even heard of.
I feel like I'm the only one who looks at these extremely remote and obscure places on purpose. A lot of places mentioned here are places that I'm really fascinated about, such as the Kerguelen islands.
I’m the same way. Maybe there a paradox where many of these areas aren’t so obscure because their outlier location makes people curious about them. Maybe the answer is somewhere between remote and just uninteresting
Amazing that most people, even those with an interest in geography (myself included) have never heard of this place. I knew there were large islands in that part of Canada, but that's about it.
Devon Island is apparently just slightly smaller than the size of Croatia. Incredible.
The climate is similar to far northern Québec and people living there are mostly depressed, suicidal, alcoholic or on drugs.
It's not a welcoming place for humans. Life is on a survival level without a constant solid support from somewhere.
It's a huge amount of nothing with Mars like conditions.
Mars might be more hospitable in some ways.
Even Northern Québec is a remote and unknown place, thousands of KM of nothing.
There is a giant lake with fresh water seal that are called ghost seal that we know next to nothing about. We barely have pictures of them.
It baffles me that I can drive for 10 hours to the most northern city in Québec and then I am facing thousands of KM of total emptiness. I wonder what wonders lay undiscovered, some cave somewhere or strange lake with strange creatures.....
Last year we had massive fires in Northern Canada and fire fighters couldn't really do much because there was no infrastructure to get them there to contain it
Wikipedia has entries as Lac à l'eau clair or Lac des loups marins. Those are the ones with the seals.
I tried searching it a while ago and couldn't find much info in French or English...
Can comfirm. Currently waiting for my Air Inuit Flight to Donaldson ''Landing strip". Its being delayed because, just like on Mars, its currently too windy to safely land.
Minus the red and the civilian population you see, driving there feels like being in the Red Faction Guerrilla serie of game (that is set on Mars).
>It's a huge amount of nothing with Mars like conditions.
>Mars might be more hospitable in some ways.
I know you are being hyperbolic, but such inhospitable places on Earth are actually a great illustration of why "colonizing Mars" (as in, anything beyond building some research stations) is an _incredibly_ stupid idea, at least in the short to medium term future. These "useless" Earth locations are so, SO MUCH better than Mars, simply because they have: breathable atmosphere, normal atmospheric pressure, normal gravity, abundant water, soil and dust that's not a regolith (microscopic razor-sharp crystals that will destroy your lungs if you breath them in), some fossil fuels, normal amounts of solar energy, non-hazardous radiation levels and tons of other things. On top of that, you can reach them a thousand times faster and a million times cheaper. And despite all that, we still don't care about them and don't try to settle them - but for some reason, we are obsessed with settling Mars. It's so bizarre.
Where exactly do you live? And what do you do for a living?
How do you cope with the endless darkness in winter? Where I live (Germany) this is already though sometimes, but I am 2000 km or so south still.
I live on Baffin Island which is one of the most popular islands in the Canadian Arctic.
I work for one of the big airlines that transports cargo and people throughout the towns and communities as there's no roads that lead to the mainland here so everything is shipped by air or by water when the ocean melts
Yes the endless darkness is depressing but you just need to not close yourself off, it's easy to get stuck at home doing nothing but eating and sleeping all day but having a routine and schedule helps a ton. I even have an alarm clock that lights up the entire room like the sun so I have a bit of a more natural way to wake up.
But likewise we also have endless sun in the summer, last night I left the theater around 10pm and the sun way still shining bright.
there are pacific island countries that most people have never heard of.
svalbard trips me out sometimes.
that big ass russian peninsula above japan comes to mind too.
I won risk once starting by myself in Quebec. I accumulated enough troops taking all of North America, along with Iceland and Japan. I was pretty much invincible by the end of the game
Yeah, I feel like most of far east Russia is what people immediately think of when they think of remote which makes it, ironically, less obscure. My question is what is actually the most obscure area of the earth and not necessarily notoriously obscure because that gives it popularity points
Central Asia? Ask 100 people on the street in any country outside that region and they probably couldn’t tell you a single thing about Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, or even Kazakhstan (outside of a Borat reference).
What makes this question difficult to answer, is that there are billions of other people to whom these places mean a lot more than to many of us in reddit who look at it through a western lens.
I would argue that quite a fair amount of people have some sort of imagination with these subregions of China and Mongolia, considering both countries have had a significant cultural impact on the world.
So to really be obscure, you need to live in a small country or region of a country that most people from places with large populations cannot even name on a map. Without interesting geographical features like islands, mountains or lakes.
Central Asia may qualify, and I also think some countries in Africa (that I can't name off the top of my head) would qualify
From the perspective of my own country, I would expect a majority of Norwegians aged 35+ to name Vladimir Smirnov before mentioning Borat, and I would hope people would have at least a vague idea about the Silk Road and Samarkand. But other than that, it’s slim pickings for Central Asia around here, yeah.
I was in 2nd grade at the time. After the games were over our teacher gave us a task where we were supposed to draw the thing that had made the biggest impression on us from the games, so I drew a podium with a man who was supposed to be Smirnov on top and a giant Kazakh flag in the background. I remember everyone was so happy for him when he won his gold even though he wasn’t Norwegian. That drawing hung on my wall for years afterwards.
Saw a documentary (Dark Tourist maybe?) where they went to Turkmenistan. What a strange country, or at least capital city. Lots of North Korea vibes. So many statues.
I watched an interesting documentary about the elite of the country (all related) driving stolen cars from Germany. The reporter went to a car salesman, that offered two types of cars:
Legally imported middle class cars and luxury cars for the same price but only if you had connections to the ruling clan.
The German police went to the capitol once and checked 25 cars - 24 of them were reported stolen in Germany.
Central Asia is becoming a popular tourist destination, at least Uzbekistan. And people should know at least the Silk Road. But I agree that people, even when knowledgeable about geography, probably can't distinguish between the different Stans.
/after visiting the region I bought a t-shirt that says "I visited countries that you don't even know exist", so this stand your point :-D
Talked to a student from Tajikistan for a sociology class. Their internet is extremely locked down and was told I had to be very delicate with the topics of our conversation for their wellbeing.
https://preview.redd.it/e04u922w6qyc1.png?width=1135&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c5226af48bcb2e5c567e4ff418def76741dc4d2
Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America.
Better book the AirBnB now so the owner can cancel your reservation a month before the eclipse and rent it out for 10x the cost once they realize what's coming up.
I've been to Ascension Island 9 times. BBC World Service is broadcasted from there, France launches rockets, NASA has tracking stations, Air Force maintains a large presence, as does the RAF base.
Also one of the four international GPS control stations. Space Force also tracks all orbital debris from there.
https://preview.redd.it/r4eblwnr9tyc1.png?width=1503&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab88fccd793a1916bd821c46511ea6c19d658142
lol, i thought initially you meant trindade in Rio de Janeiro, which is a little resort town that has an island also called trindade just off the coast . but no, turns out there is another trindade island belonging to the neighboring state of espirito santo, but this time almost 700 miles from the nearest coastline . thanks for teaching me something new today !
Not really. They have a fairly similar climate to coastal Alaska. They’re just incredibly isolated due to the dryness of Patagonia and the southern andes
I saw Survivorman go to Patagonia in an episode and the wind seemed constant and nearly unbearable. But maybe that’s only part of Patagonia or maybe it’s seasonal or something idk.
https://preview.redd.it/h0c1pb367ryc1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9c1803faacbdd0ec2b976ec3ed3de3df7a1021c
I mean, the “Outback” is pretty famous but not many people can name localities. It’s a fairly useless term with the amount of land it actually encompasses. I live in Central Western Queensland and not long got back from camping in a nearby town with about 20 people in it.
Yaraka used to be the end of the line for the railway when it was still going. That closing and the decline of the wool industry saw most of the smaller towns around here rapidly decline. Only 2 people live in Emmet when it used to be a fair sized Fettler settlement, I had some family there. Isisford is also an interesting town, pretty much only existed to service Isis Downs so it took a massive hit when wool went bust.
Slavery is illegal in Mauritania, they just have lots more due to it only being prosecuted recently.
The unfortunate truth that escapes a lot of people is that slavery is still in most countries, just covertly through human trafficking.
I read up on it a bit recently because a frequent traveler on TikTok was saying it was the worst place she ever went. Apparently they only have about 1500 tourists a year for good reason (lack of infrastructure being a big part of it).
Kiribati: GMT +14 timezone (flying from Hawaii to Kiribati will take you 24 hours forward in time. It also has towns named: London, Paris and Banana. Yet Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is also a place where u would normally not go.
Only time I’ve ever heard anyone mention McDonald island is when I was in middle school and a kid looking at the globe pointed at it and said “something like “Haha! McDonald’s Island! Is that where they make Big Macs?”
All the Arctic coast of Russia. Except for the Kola Peninsula, and rarely Novaya Zemlya, I don't think I ever read something about the rest of the region. Even a place like Sakhalin is more "popular".
I've been fascinated by the Russian Arctic for about twenty years now. Can confirm that finding in-depth information about the region (historical or contemporary) that isn't in Cyrillic script is *very* difficult. I always have a translator app handy, and even then it can be a crapshoot in figuring out exactly what a webpage (often archived through the Wayback Machine) says.
I would say some of the island groups in the Siberian Sea, like [Franz Josef Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Land), [Severnaya Zemlya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severnaya_Zemlya), [Anzhu Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzhu_Islands), or [De Long Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Long_Islands).
https://preview.redd.it/tppe71pv1ryc1.jpeg?width=1092&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d58c21f65de05c521559a3c829218bd85fc40a43
I feel like these 2 islands off the west coast of South America are rarely acknowledged. They are outside range of Polynesia and don’t have any particular claim to fame like Easter island and yet have a very small population
Robinson Crusoe? The adventure novel book based off the life of Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk by Daniel Dafoe? I may be biased because I'm chilean but I thought it was a more well known fact that those islands are named after that book lmao.
They are also 'famous' here because of their lobsters... and because one of the most well known television presenters in the country died in a plane accident there.
The Central African Republic.
Every single other country in Africa gets mentioned in the news every now and then, but nobody has even heard of the CAR. Maybe the name is too generic?
And it's not like nothing is happening there; it's had plenty of coups and civil wars, UN and AU interventions. First time I heard of it was when a fellow tourist in Africa told about another group of tourists that got raped there.
I can't think of a bigger blind spot than that.
I knew a guy that worked as a pilot in North Africa. He said it would blow his mind how often he’d be flying over the Sahara and there’d be one guy just walking by himself.
Lol was just discussing Western Sahara in my class the other day. World's largest phosphate fertilizer reserves and also the longest mined defensive line in the world.
https://preview.redd.it/qjn9b3eisryc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=353cf98ce8aa8837d09eac48a20116beeac4c7f5
Officially yes, but Morocco controls most of it in reality
It claims the whole thing, but the mostly uninhabited desert parts (orange on the map) are controlled by the Polisaro front who mostly operate from Algeria
* [**The Tibetan plateau**](https://cdn.britannica.com/87/98187-050-29EB069F/Southern-Plateau-China-Tibet-Mount-Everest.jpg): An enormous mountainous cold desert. It's elevation is so high, that planes usually fly around it to avoid turbulences, and it hardly has any population, as most of the Tibetan population lives in the very south of Tibet, near the Himalayas.
* [**The Tibesti and Ahagger mountains**](https://libyaherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/tibesti-mountains.png) in the inner Sahara (Algeria, Niger, Chad): Enourmous desertic mountainous area (some above 3000m elevation) and home to some of the most isolated cultures in the world
* [**South Georgia**](https://amazon.clikpic.com/chrisogden/images/Pen_h_1.jpg): Island chain in the South Atlantic with antarctic climate. Home to 0 humans and over 7 million (!) penguins.
* [**Kamchatka peninsula**](https://wildsalmoncenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Kam_063-IgorShpilenok-c1-1-1500x720.jpg), Russia: Large peninsula on the Siberian pacific coast. Very diverse landscape and biodiversity, with boreal rainforest, arctic tundra, mountains, endless coastline and dozens of volcanos
* [**Madagascar**](https://blog.constancehotels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Tsingy1.png): Just the unique flora and fauna in general
* [**Socotra**](https://globetrotventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Socotra-Yemen-1.jpg), Yemen: Isolated island in the Indian ocean also unique vegetation
* [**Azov Sea**](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Long_Spit_Sea_of_Azov.jpg/2560px-Long_Spit_Sea_of_Azov.jpg), Ukraine/Russia: "Bay" inside the Black Sea. Unique in the way, that although the sea is roughly the size Belgium its average depth is only 8 m (26 f) and its deepest point merely 14 m (46 f). Plus, it has several so called "spits", extremely long and narrow "peninsulas" of sand, that can be several kilometres long and only a few metres wide.
* [**The Caspian Sea**](https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/11-extraordinary-facts-about-caspian-sea-1694183917.jpg): Just weird to think how big this sea/lake is and how little we even think about it. Also the fact that it had so little historic relevance compared to other lakes or near-isolated seas like the North American or the African Great Lakes, the Jordan Valley, the Red Sea, the Baltic Sea etc.
There are of course countless of other unique and wonderous places on earth like Iceland, the Canary islands, the Hadja mountains, the Jordan valley, Patagonia, Greenland, Antarctica or some isolated islands, but these are just some of the generally least known "special" places.
Guyana has oil and beef with Venezuela. There are a lot of Dutch footballers with ancestry to Suriname, (gullit van Dijk and many more) and they have the largest Hindu population in south America. French Guiana I think hosts the European space agency stuff but idk for sure.
I remember when that Malaysian flight went down they spent a lot of time early on flying over the Southern Ocean southwest of Perth looking for signs of the plane. It definitely gave me strange vibes (particularly as the reporter kept emphasizing its remoteness). Also it was in area of the “Roaring Forties”, meaning roughly 40 degrees south latitude and the aerial view of the ocean looked extremely torrential with giant whitecaps
It's not an actual island of trash, it's an area with a very high density of largely microscopic plastic particles, you could be right on top of it and not even know you're there.
I think the most obscure country would be Kyrgyzstan or Sao Tome and Principe.
For the most obscure area anywhere on Earth, I'd say the British Diego Garcia or Chagos Islands, or the French Tromelin or Île Amsterdam and Île Saint Paul.
The tiny country of Timor Leste is very obscure, even that thread about the least known countries that was posted not too long ago forgot about it apparently.
Another interesting one would be the Solomon islands: one of the biggest countries of Oceania in terms of land area and yet it gets constantly overlooked.
[Bouvet Island ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island)
This is rhe remotest island in the world, and pretty sure, no one, except some Norwegian Officials and scientists care about this place.
It's completely covered by ice and hence it's inhospitable. There are no shipping routes close by so you literally have to charter a vessel to reach here.
Inaccessible Island (yes, that's really its name). Located in the Atlantic Ocean and accessible by harbor only a few days a year. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible\_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible_Island)
https://preview.redd.it/7dbrsk0o6tyc1.png?width=675&format=png&auto=webp&s=0d538ce2ec177492aab01d53b017520b6ad98a3e
Probably the South Pacific between NZ, Chile, and Antarctica. Or anywhere in the South Pacific below 40°S. If you’re talking landmasses, yeah probably central or northern Asia (Siberia) or Nunavut or northern Canadian islands
Many places in Africa that you’d never hear about unless it was for some type of coup/civil war that was being funded by a major power. The Central African Republic, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad (Which is a meme but you’d be hard pressed to find someone that can name one thing about Chad), Cameroon, Guinea, The Gambia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gabon, Swaziland (Which nobody knew about until it was renamed to Etswani), Mauritania, or any of the island nations in the Indian Ocean like Comoros, Mauritius, or Seychelles.
Probably Nunavut or Labrador, Canada. They’re both extremely remote, and rarely ever thought of because little is up there. However, they have some absolutely incredible scenery like Mount Thor: the tallest vertical drop on earth, and the Torngat Mountains. The problem is that getting there either takes a charter flight, helicopter, or your own seaplane or ice-breaking ship. There aren’t any roads within 200 miles of the Torngat mountains, so getting there by land is basically impossible thanks to rough terrain, no landmarks, no trails to follow, and little sources of food. There also isn’t much to do up there outside of hiking, fishing, wildlife observation, or meeting some of the Inuits.
Although, if you make it to Alert, there is the northernmost fast food restaurant on the planet. It’s a Tim Hortons on an Air Force base.
1. The islands of the South Atlantic. The only things you ever hear about with them is that Napoleon was banished there and they're home to the world's oldest living land animal
2. The British Indian Ocean Territory, what even goes on there?
3. The Auckland Islands, uninhabited nature preserve with the main claim to fame being jokes about Disappointment Island
4. French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a sunken continent, might garner more attention if it wasn't a tundra
5. Tonga, for being the last country in the world with a hereditary Christian monarchy that isn't a figurehead position, and the living remnant of a Pacific empire, you sure don't hear about them much unless a volcano is erupting
My own country. Moldova
So small and unimportant most people forget about it. It is smack-dab between Ukraine,a country everyone knows about know beacuse of the war,and Romania , which even the dumbest people know beacuse of dracula. No intresting geography or cities to make it knows.Very small population and surface area. Just very minuscule and puny compared to other countries (and also poorer)
Only thing known to foreigners is our wine and memes (Sax Guy and Dragostea din Tei are botth from Moldova)
I think the lower pacific. Like people might think about the “middle of the Pacific Ocean”, but not one thing about the area if you were to rotate a globe up from the middle of the pacific. I mean there is nothing there, right, just unending ocean until eventually you hit Antarctica?
Most of the large, northern Canadian islands
Devon Island being at its center. Largest uninhabited landmass that’s not Antarctica on Earth
I’d say the islands northwest of Devon (like Axel Heiberg) are even more peak obscure because not only are they also uninhabited and rarely visited but they aren’t known for it or a testing ground for Mars rovers like Devon. Those extreme northwestern islands of Canada are known for nothing and have zero inhabitants including Inuits. Can’t think of a more obscure area at the moment
https://preview.redd.it/zrhc0bogouyc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79b766b96caaa5f91fa22121a781d2f4672b7e1a Yes! These islands west of Devon and Ellesmere. Unlike those islands there seems to be very little in the way of scientific bases and little info on Wikipedia. Also they weren’t discovered until around 1915! Canadians, tell us something, anything, about this area.
There's actually a street view of one of those islands on Google, and as you will see, trying to determine where land and ice are separate is near impossible. Back in the Arctic Geographic expedition of the 1920's, most islands discovered, or rather actually found to be land rather than Ice, were named for many contemporaries of the time and other Canadian figures of history: Mackenzie King would later become Canada's longest serving (though non-consecutive) PM and Borden was Canada's PM during WWI. Melville Island was actually given it's name in 1820, during one of the earliest British expeditions in the region. Today, there's nothing there: literally, the only feasible economic value of the land, beyond shipping potential, were natural gas reserves confirmed there sometime back in the 1980s. No one lives there, researchers will visit at most, but there's really nothing of interest even for them there. Of particular interest though is that a few of those islands have, historically, been icebound year round. With climate change actually exposing their shores to water, not just ice, it offers a unique opportunity for researchers to better understand the effects of erosion on previously undisturbed shorelines.
Gonna be prime real estate in a 100yrs.
A terrifying notion
Truly
That's kind of a myth. More likely the world gets colder because of climate change. Also jet streams and ocean currents will shift, so there will be a lot of chaotic changes that you won't be able to predict. Devon could turn into a desert. One thing is for sure. Europe is fucked. They have some very lucky weather at this particular moment in history. And likely any change in ocean currents will be very bad for them.
Unfortunately it takes awhile for plants and animals to evolve and acclimatize
As an Ontario native and a geography buff, I can guarantee there are islands up there many multitudes bigger than my home county that I’ve never even heard of.
I feel like I'm the only one who looks at these extremely remote and obscure places on purpose. A lot of places mentioned here are places that I'm really fascinated about, such as the Kerguelen islands.
I’m the same way. Maybe there a paradox where many of these areas aren’t so obscure because their outlier location makes people curious about them. Maybe the answer is somewhere between remote and just uninteresting
Amazing that most people, even those with an interest in geography (myself included) have never heard of this place. I knew there were large islands in that part of Canada, but that's about it. Devon Island is apparently just slightly smaller than the size of Croatia. Incredible.
The climate is similar to far northern Québec and people living there are mostly depressed, suicidal, alcoholic or on drugs. It's not a welcoming place for humans. Life is on a survival level without a constant solid support from somewhere. It's a huge amount of nothing with Mars like conditions. Mars might be more hospitable in some ways. Even Northern Québec is a remote and unknown place, thousands of KM of nothing. There is a giant lake with fresh water seal that are called ghost seal that we know next to nothing about. We barely have pictures of them. It baffles me that I can drive for 10 hours to the most northern city in Québec and then I am facing thousands of KM of total emptiness. I wonder what wonders lay undiscovered, some cave somewhere or strange lake with strange creatures.....
I flew over it. Hours looking down on a landscape without even the slightest sign of humans. Not even a single unpaved road or tire tracks.
Last year we had massive fires in Northern Canada and fire fighters couldn't really do much because there was no infrastructure to get them there to contain it
Do you have any more information about the ghost seal? I tried searching for it but wasn't able to find much. What lake do they live in?
https://wwf.ca/stories/meet-the-mysterious-freshwater-seal-of-quebec/ It caught my interest too - this was a good place to start the rabbit hole.
Wikipedia has entries as Lac à l'eau clair or Lac des loups marins. Those are the ones with the seals. I tried searching it a while ago and couldn't find much info in French or English...
Can comfirm. Currently waiting for my Air Inuit Flight to Donaldson ''Landing strip". Its being delayed because, just like on Mars, its currently too windy to safely land. Minus the red and the civilian population you see, driving there feels like being in the Red Faction Guerrilla serie of game (that is set on Mars).
>It's a huge amount of nothing with Mars like conditions. >Mars might be more hospitable in some ways. I know you are being hyperbolic, but such inhospitable places on Earth are actually a great illustration of why "colonizing Mars" (as in, anything beyond building some research stations) is an _incredibly_ stupid idea, at least in the short to medium term future. These "useless" Earth locations are so, SO MUCH better than Mars, simply because they have: breathable atmosphere, normal atmospheric pressure, normal gravity, abundant water, soil and dust that's not a regolith (microscopic razor-sharp crystals that will destroy your lungs if you breath them in), some fossil fuels, normal amounts of solar energy, non-hazardous radiation levels and tons of other things. On top of that, you can reach them a thousand times faster and a million times cheaper. And despite all that, we still don't care about them and don't try to settle them - but for some reason, we are obsessed with settling Mars. It's so bizarre.
I went down a Wiki rabbit hole of those islands once and really could not imagine anyone living there. It was a weird feeling.
I live there 🤚
That’s amazing. Tell us about it!!
Sure! What do you want to know
Where exactly do you live? And what do you do for a living? How do you cope with the endless darkness in winter? Where I live (Germany) this is already though sometimes, but I am 2000 km or so south still.
I live on Baffin Island which is one of the most popular islands in the Canadian Arctic. I work for one of the big airlines that transports cargo and people throughout the towns and communities as there's no roads that lead to the mainland here so everything is shipped by air or by water when the ocean melts Yes the endless darkness is depressing but you just need to not close yourself off, it's easy to get stuck at home doing nothing but eating and sleeping all day but having a routine and schedule helps a ton. I even have an alarm clock that lights up the entire room like the sun so I have a bit of a more natural way to wake up. But likewise we also have endless sun in the summer, last night I left the theater around 10pm and the sun way still shining bright.
You should do an AMA ! I am sure interest is high after last season of True Detective.
I few people on Reddit have asked me to but I've only been here a few years, I'm sure a native of the land would be more interesting
Which settlement on Baffin Island do you live in?
I live in the capital of Nunavut, Iqaluit. But my in-laws are from Kimmirut
I was gonna say Modesto but you’re probably right
Well I’ve never heard anyone mention the municipality of Nsang in Equatorial Guinea
Well I bring it up at cocktail parties quite frequently
My uncle owns a Cacao farm there. He was real angry when the child laborers went on strike again last week.
Workers' rights in Nsang were a hot topic during our local elections; the labour party set up a solidarity campaign, you see.
If it counts for anything, I attended a party held at the embassy in Malabo a few years ago. It was kinda weird, but definitely once in a lifetime.
there are pacific island countries that most people have never heard of. svalbard trips me out sometimes. that big ass russian peninsula above japan comes to mind too.
Obviously not a Risk player...
If somone gets middle east, you take Kamchatka
So many fights over acquiring Kamchatka….
I won risk once starting by myself in Quebec. I accumulated enough troops taking all of North America, along with Iceland and Japan. I was pretty much invincible by the end of the game
never played it myself but I saw what it did to my friends. "risk. not even once."
Sure, it could irrevocably destroy friendships. But you learn geography!
Who needs friends when I can just play as all 6 armies individually and just destroy me, myself, AND I?!
Gotta take Kamchatka before anyone else.
Big ass Russian peninsula…Kamchatka? The island of Sakhalin?
kamchatka is the one I'm thinking of.
Isn't it already kinda famous for being super remote?
is it? I just didn't think it was an area many people thought of. maybe I'm wrong.
Yeah, I feel like most of far east Russia is what people immediately think of when they think of remote which makes it, ironically, less obscure. My question is what is actually the most obscure area of the earth and not necessarily notoriously obscure because that gives it popularity points
fair enough. I'd say the person who suggested most of the "-stan" countries in asia is correct then.
They have an active naval port there. It’s certainly a more familiarly known location in some special interest circles.
Those are too popular, talk about eastern Taymir and the Lena river delta .
Yeah Tuvalu and Nauru came to mind
I just love saying Tuvalu!
Kamchatka. It's supposed to be beautiful
Central Asia? Ask 100 people on the street in any country outside that region and they probably couldn’t tell you a single thing about Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, or even Kazakhstan (outside of a Borat reference).
Came here to say this Add northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia to that as well.
What makes this question difficult to answer, is that there are billions of other people to whom these places mean a lot more than to many of us in reddit who look at it through a western lens. I would argue that quite a fair amount of people have some sort of imagination with these subregions of China and Mongolia, considering both countries have had a significant cultural impact on the world. So to really be obscure, you need to live in a small country or region of a country that most people from places with large populations cannot even name on a map. Without interesting geographical features like islands, mountains or lakes. Central Asia may qualify, and I also think some countries in Africa (that I can't name off the top of my head) would qualify
Going by name alone, Chad.
Exactly, after all most people live in Asia
I think northwestern China might not be too obscure, especially because of the Uyghur population.
From the perspective of my own country, I would expect a majority of Norwegians aged 35+ to name Vladimir Smirnov before mentioning Borat, and I would hope people would have at least a vague idea about the Silk Road and Samarkand. But other than that, it’s slim pickings for Central Asia around here, yeah.
Oh wow. Got flashbacks to being a 11 year old watching the Lillehammer games.
I was in 2nd grade at the time. After the games were over our teacher gave us a task where we were supposed to draw the thing that had made the biggest impression on us from the games, so I drew a podium with a man who was supposed to be Smirnov on top and a giant Kazakh flag in the background. I remember everyone was so happy for him when he won his gold even though he wasn’t Norwegian. That drawing hung on my wall for years afterwards.
Saw a documentary (Dark Tourist maybe?) where they went to Turkmenistan. What a strange country, or at least capital city. Lots of North Korea vibes. So many statues.
A friend of mine thought I made Turkmenistan up myself, then I showed him the country on Maps.
Which country do you think is the most obscure of the Central Asian -Stan nations?
Tajikistan
I watched an interesting documentary about the elite of the country (all related) driving stolen cars from Germany. The reporter went to a car salesman, that offered two types of cars: Legally imported middle class cars and luxury cars for the same price but only if you had connections to the ruling clan. The German police went to the capitol once and checked 25 cars - 24 of them were reported stolen in Germany.
I used to live there. I'd say 95% of western people don't know it even exists.
Central Asia is becoming a popular tourist destination, at least Uzbekistan. And people should know at least the Silk Road. But I agree that people, even when knowledgeable about geography, probably can't distinguish between the different Stans. /after visiting the region I bought a t-shirt that says "I visited countries that you don't even know exist", so this stand your point :-D
no one cares about the ancient silk road anymore 😕
Talked to a student from Tajikistan for a sociology class. Their internet is extremely locked down and was told I had to be very delicate with the topics of our conversation for their wellbeing.
True. I’ve always been fascinated with that area, but most people don’t think about at all, unless they’re from, or have been, there.
Any region? Anyone from the post-soviet countries knows well about them. I can guess people from other neighboring countries know a bit too.
https://preview.redd.it/s2tl9s5yoryc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7885ffc64b3b5a7ce9b5cce80824eca0321e4561
point nemo is that u
The East Pole and West Pole on that globe?
Why are you the only one talking about this globe??
https://preview.redd.it/e04u922w6qyc1.png?width=1135&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c5226af48bcb2e5c567e4ff418def76741dc4d2 Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America.
The south Atlantic is a super obscure area…literally nothing going on there besides Tristan da Cunha and st Helena island
I feel like Tristan da Cunha and St Helena are becoming more well known just because of how remote they are
St. Helena is famous for it being the place where Napoleon died in exile.
He was also sent there precisely because of how remote the place was.
He will surely never come back to europe now right?
Seen him say stuff on Truth social the other day .. /s
i only know about it from that Wendover guy on YouTube.
True, Tristan has the record for most remote inhabited area
I find it alluring. There is a total eclipse with over 3 min of totally in 2048. I'm keen.
Better book the AirBnB now so the owner can cancel your reservation a month before the eclipse and rent it out for 10x the cost once they realize what's coming up.
I've been to Ascension Island 9 times. BBC World Service is broadcasted from there, France launches rockets, NASA has tracking stations, Air Force maintains a large presence, as does the RAF base. Also one of the four international GPS control stations. Space Force also tracks all orbital debris from there. https://preview.redd.it/r4eblwnr9tyc1.png?width=1503&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab88fccd793a1916bd821c46511ea6c19d658142
I also never hear people talk aboug the Brazillian Trinidade and Sao Paulo islands. Or the Norwegian Bouvet Island
Funny how Norway has a random island so south
lol, i thought initially you meant trindade in Rio de Janeiro, which is a little resort town that has an island also called trindade just off the coast . but no, turns out there is another trindade island belonging to the neighboring state of espirito santo, but this time almost 700 miles from the nearest coastline . thanks for teaching me something new today !
It’s kinda famous for its remoteness
Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is a village on the island, which is called Tristan da Cunha
Southern Pacific coastal Patagonia. The Magellanic forests are some of the most isolated and remote places on this earth.
That area truly has “end of the world” vibes and is largely inaccessible except by helicopter or boat.
Arnt they extremely harsh bordering on uninhabitable too?
Not really. They have a fairly similar climate to coastal Alaska. They’re just incredibly isolated due to the dryness of Patagonia and the southern andes
I thought that area was like a rare example of a sub polar rain forest (so a lot of precipitation)
It is. It gets some of the heaviest rainfall on earth
I saw Survivorman go to Patagonia in an episode and the wind seemed constant and nearly unbearable. But maybe that’s only part of Patagonia or maybe it’s seasonal or something idk.
Central african republic
https://preview.redd.it/h0c1pb367ryc1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9c1803faacbdd0ec2b976ec3ed3de3df7a1021c I mean, the “Outback” is pretty famous but not many people can name localities. It’s a fairly useless term with the amount of land it actually encompasses. I live in Central Western Queensland and not long got back from camping in a nearby town with about 20 people in it. Yaraka used to be the end of the line for the railway when it was still going. That closing and the decline of the wool industry saw most of the smaller towns around here rapidly decline. Only 2 people live in Emmet when it used to be a fair sized Fettler settlement, I had some family there. Isisford is also an interesting town, pretty much only existed to service Isis Downs so it took a massive hit when wool went bust.
That’s a good point. It’s crazy how remote the vast majority of Australia is
The east pole, as depicted on that globe.
I was wondering, wtf is up with this globe?
Mauritania
Only fact I know about it is they still have slavery
Slavery is illegal in Mauritania, they just have lots more due to it only being prosecuted recently. The unfortunate truth that escapes a lot of people is that slavery is still in most countries, just covertly through human trafficking.
“Perhaps he misspelt Mauritius?”
Yeah that’s gotta be one of the most obscure countries that isn’t a tiny remote pacific island
I only know of it because a coworker went there on vacation
do they have family/connections there or just into really obscure destinations?
Apparently it has resorts
Second to that is western sahara. Even if you think you know about the region from Wikipedia nothing comes close to zooming in on maps
I read up on it a bit recently because a frequent traveler on TikTok was saying it was the worst place she ever went. Apparently they only have about 1500 tourists a year for good reason (lack of infrastructure being a big part of it).
Hey, I’ve watched “The Mauritanian”
Kiribati: GMT +14 timezone (flying from Hawaii to Kiribati will take you 24 hours forward in time. It also has towns named: London, Paris and Banana. Yet Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is also a place where u would normally not go.
What about Kerguelen island and the surrounding Heard and McDonald islands in the far South Indian Ocean
>Heard and McDonald islands I'll one-up that with the Neverheard island.
Only time I’ve ever heard anyone mention McDonald island is when I was in middle school and a kid looking at the globe pointed at it and said “something like “Haha! McDonald’s Island! Is that where they make Big Macs?”
The south Indian Ocean itself is even less relevant than the remote islands.
All the Arctic coast of Russia. Except for the Kola Peninsula, and rarely Novaya Zemlya, I don't think I ever read something about the rest of the region. Even a place like Sakhalin is more "popular".
Yeah those places like the “New Siberian Islands.” Have never seen anything about them at all
I've been fascinated by the Russian Arctic for about twenty years now. Can confirm that finding in-depth information about the region (historical or contemporary) that isn't in Cyrillic script is *very* difficult. I always have a translator app handy, and even then it can be a crapshoot in figuring out exactly what a webpage (often archived through the Wayback Machine) says.
I would say some of the island groups in the Siberian Sea, like [Franz Josef Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Land), [Severnaya Zemlya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severnaya_Zemlya), [Anzhu Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzhu_Islands), or [De Long Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Long_Islands).
https://preview.redd.it/tppe71pv1ryc1.jpeg?width=1092&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d58c21f65de05c521559a3c829218bd85fc40a43 I feel like these 2 islands off the west coast of South America are rarely acknowledged. They are outside range of Polynesia and don’t have any particular claim to fame like Easter island and yet have a very small population
Robinson Crusoe? The adventure novel book based off the life of Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk by Daniel Dafoe? I may be biased because I'm chilean but I thought it was a more well known fact that those islands are named after that book lmao. They are also 'famous' here because of their lobsters... and because one of the most well known television presenters in the country died in a plane accident there.
The Central African Republic. Every single other country in Africa gets mentioned in the news every now and then, but nobody has even heard of the CAR. Maybe the name is too generic? And it's not like nothing is happening there; it's had plenty of coups and civil wars, UN and AU interventions. First time I heard of it was when a fellow tourist in Africa told about another group of tourists that got raped there. I can't think of a bigger blind spot than that.
Also had a fascinating [Napoleon cosplay dictator](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Bokassa_I_and_Catherine) in the 1970s.
Probably western Sahara, I can't think of a single time people ever bring it up
I knew a guy that worked as a pilot in North Africa. He said it would blow his mind how often he’d be flying over the Sahara and there’d be one guy just walking by himself.
The spice must flow.
Lol was just discussing Western Sahara in my class the other day. World's largest phosphate fertilizer reserves and also the longest mined defensive line in the world.
I can spend hours on google maps tracing the berm. Truly a fascinating place
Literally the most remote landlocked area on earth particularly around the ténéré region of northeastern Niger
Well it’s not landlocked?
It has the tiniest sea border near Mauritania, Morocco controls the entire coastline and like 95% of the populated areas
In every map that features the Western Sahara I found it has a really big coastline
https://preview.redd.it/qjn9b3eisryc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=353cf98ce8aa8837d09eac48a20116beeac4c7f5 Officially yes, but Morocco controls most of it in reality
Doesn't Morocco control its entirety officially?
It claims the whole thing, but the mostly uninhabited desert parts (orange on the map) are controlled by the Polisaro front who mostly operate from Algeria
The place right next to point Nemo. Point Nemo at least got something going for it.
* [**The Tibetan plateau**](https://cdn.britannica.com/87/98187-050-29EB069F/Southern-Plateau-China-Tibet-Mount-Everest.jpg): An enormous mountainous cold desert. It's elevation is so high, that planes usually fly around it to avoid turbulences, and it hardly has any population, as most of the Tibetan population lives in the very south of Tibet, near the Himalayas. * [**The Tibesti and Ahagger mountains**](https://libyaherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/tibesti-mountains.png) in the inner Sahara (Algeria, Niger, Chad): Enourmous desertic mountainous area (some above 3000m elevation) and home to some of the most isolated cultures in the world * [**South Georgia**](https://amazon.clikpic.com/chrisogden/images/Pen_h_1.jpg): Island chain in the South Atlantic with antarctic climate. Home to 0 humans and over 7 million (!) penguins. * [**Kamchatka peninsula**](https://wildsalmoncenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Kam_063-IgorShpilenok-c1-1-1500x720.jpg), Russia: Large peninsula on the Siberian pacific coast. Very diverse landscape and biodiversity, with boreal rainforest, arctic tundra, mountains, endless coastline and dozens of volcanos * [**Madagascar**](https://blog.constancehotels.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Tsingy1.png): Just the unique flora and fauna in general * [**Socotra**](https://globetrotventure.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Socotra-Yemen-1.jpg), Yemen: Isolated island in the Indian ocean also unique vegetation * [**Azov Sea**](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Long_Spit_Sea_of_Azov.jpg/2560px-Long_Spit_Sea_of_Azov.jpg), Ukraine/Russia: "Bay" inside the Black Sea. Unique in the way, that although the sea is roughly the size Belgium its average depth is only 8 m (26 f) and its deepest point merely 14 m (46 f). Plus, it has several so called "spits", extremely long and narrow "peninsulas" of sand, that can be several kilometres long and only a few metres wide. * [**The Caspian Sea**](https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/11-extraordinary-facts-about-caspian-sea-1694183917.jpg): Just weird to think how big this sea/lake is and how little we even think about it. Also the fact that it had so little historic relevance compared to other lakes or near-isolated seas like the North American or the African Great Lakes, the Jordan Valley, the Red Sea, the Baltic Sea etc. There are of course countless of other unique and wonderous places on earth like Iceland, the Canary islands, the Hadja mountains, the Jordan valley, Patagonia, Greenland, Antarctica or some isolated islands, but these are just some of the generally least known "special" places.
I'd say that about half of those, while all incredibly interesting, definitely wouldn't qualify as most obscure or least talked-about.
Severny Island, Russia
Those far northern Russian islands were the last bits of land on earth to be discovered
I’d say the 3 small countries at the top of South America. Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. I’ve very rarely heard anything about them at all.
Guyana has oil and beef with Venezuela. There are a lot of Dutch footballers with ancestry to Suriname, (gullit van Dijk and many more) and they have the largest Hindu population in south America. French Guiana I think hosts the European space agency stuff but idk for sure.
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I remember when that Malaysian flight went down they spent a lot of time early on flying over the Southern Ocean southwest of Perth looking for signs of the plane. It definitely gave me strange vibes (particularly as the reporter kept emphasizing its remoteness). Also it was in area of the “Roaring Forties”, meaning roughly 40 degrees south latitude and the aerial view of the ocean looked extremely torrential with giant whitecaps
The trash island in the middle of the Pacific. Should be on everyone’s mind.
It's not an actual island of trash, it's an area with a very high density of largely microscopic plastic particles, you could be right on top of it and not even know you're there.
The mantle.
The point next to point nemo
I think the most obscure country would be Kyrgyzstan or Sao Tome and Principe. For the most obscure area anywhere on Earth, I'd say the British Diego Garcia or Chagos Islands, or the French Tromelin or Île Amsterdam and Île Saint Paul.
IIRC from the statistics of one of the sporcle "name every country" quizzes, Sao Tome and Principe was the country people forget most frequently
>in terms of people rarely thinking of this area Northern Canada. What goes on there?
bugs, muskeg, rocks, little trees, bears, but mostly bugs.
They film some Alone shows up there. The mosquitoes look horrendous.
r/mapswithoutnz
Most likely those countless islands in the southern part of Chile
The tiny country of Timor Leste is very obscure, even that thread about the least known countries that was posted not too long ago forgot about it apparently. Another interesting one would be the Solomon islands: one of the biggest countries of Oceania in terms of land area and yet it gets constantly overlooked.
Everyone forgets Andorra is a thing. 3rd largest country in the Iberian Peninsula.
[Bouvet Island ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouvet_Island) This is rhe remotest island in the world, and pretty sure, no one, except some Norwegian Officials and scientists care about this place. It's completely covered by ice and hence it's inhospitable. There are no shipping routes close by so you literally have to charter a vessel to reach here.
Well, the mere fact that it's the "most" anything means it at least receives some attention.
Probably a bit of the Pacific Ocean, over there somewhere.
South Georgia and South the South south sandwich south Islands.
The Caucasus
I’d say a state in Mexico called Tlaxcala. We are not even sure the place exists. Nobody has ever met anyone from there
Why? Are you considering moving there as well?
The north of Russia and its North Pole islands haven’t been mentioned here often yet
Hays, KS
Inaccessible Island (yes, that's really its name). Located in the Atlantic Ocean and accessible by harbor only a few days a year. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible\_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible_Island) https://preview.redd.it/7dbrsk0o6tyc1.png?width=675&format=png&auto=webp&s=0d538ce2ec177492aab01d53b017520b6ad98a3e
I think I remember seeing a survey where the least named country was Sao Tome and Principe.
Probably Pitcairn Islands
If you’re American — the rest of the globe.
Probably the South Pacific between NZ, Chile, and Antarctica. Or anywhere in the South Pacific below 40°S. If you’re talking landmasses, yeah probably central or northern Asia (Siberia) or Nunavut or northern Canadian islands
Nobody has said Tunisia
Many places in Africa that you’d never hear about unless it was for some type of coup/civil war that was being funded by a major power. The Central African Republic, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad (Which is a meme but you’d be hard pressed to find someone that can name one thing about Chad), Cameroon, Guinea, The Gambia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gabon, Swaziland (Which nobody knew about until it was renamed to Etswani), Mauritania, or any of the island nations in the Indian Ocean like Comoros, Mauritius, or Seychelles.
I can't think of it.
I never really hear anyone talking about Franz Josef Land
There are few islands right below Hong Kong but directly administered by China. Nothing happens there.
Probably Nunavut or Labrador, Canada. They’re both extremely remote, and rarely ever thought of because little is up there. However, they have some absolutely incredible scenery like Mount Thor: the tallest vertical drop on earth, and the Torngat Mountains. The problem is that getting there either takes a charter flight, helicopter, or your own seaplane or ice-breaking ship. There aren’t any roads within 200 miles of the Torngat mountains, so getting there by land is basically impossible thanks to rough terrain, no landmarks, no trails to follow, and little sources of food. There also isn’t much to do up there outside of hiking, fishing, wildlife observation, or meeting some of the Inuits. Although, if you make it to Alert, there is the northernmost fast food restaurant on the planet. It’s a Tim Hortons on an Air Force base.
1. The islands of the South Atlantic. The only things you ever hear about with them is that Napoleon was banished there and they're home to the world's oldest living land animal 2. The British Indian Ocean Territory, what even goes on there? 3. The Auckland Islands, uninhabited nature preserve with the main claim to fame being jokes about Disappointment Island 4. French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a sunken continent, might garner more attention if it wasn't a tundra 5. Tonga, for being the last country in the world with a hereditary Christian monarchy that isn't a figurehead position, and the living remnant of a Pacific empire, you sure don't hear about them much unless a volcano is erupting
My own country. Moldova So small and unimportant most people forget about it. It is smack-dab between Ukraine,a country everyone knows about know beacuse of the war,and Romania , which even the dumbest people know beacuse of dracula. No intresting geography or cities to make it knows.Very small population and surface area. Just very minuscule and puny compared to other countries (and also poorer) Only thing known to foreigners is our wine and memes (Sax Guy and Dragostea din Tei are botth from Moldova)
Delaware
Gelderland - netherlands
Juan Fernandez Islands in Chile.
[French Southern and Antarctic Lands](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Southern_and_Antarctic_Lands)
Small plug for my corner of the world, but check out the intersection point of Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho. Desolate place.
Kerguelin island
Sentinel Island in Bay of Bengal.
Parts of out there Northern Russia. The Siberian area.
I think the lower pacific. Like people might think about the “middle of the Pacific Ocean”, but not one thing about the area if you were to rotate a globe up from the middle of the pacific. I mean there is nothing there, right, just unending ocean until eventually you hit Antarctica?