The Mega Book of Useless Information. Noel Botham

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      • Canada (9,970,610 sq km) is larger than China (9,596,961 sq km) which is larger than the USA (9,363,130 sq km).

      • The coldest temperature ever recorded was -70°C in Siberia.

      • The second largest US state in the 1950s was California.

      • Maryland was named after Queen Henrietta Maria.

      • The only country to register zero births in 1983 was the Vatican City.

      • Florida first saw the cultivation of oranges in 1539.

      • The world’s largest National Park is Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada.

      • The world’s largest exporter of sugar is Cuba.

      • There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.

      • England’s Stonehenge is 1,500 years older than Rome’s Colosseum.

      • In 1896, Britain and Zanzibar were at war for 38 minutes.

      • The Eskimo language has over 20 words to describe different kinds of snow.

      • Numbering houses in London streets only began in 1764.

      • More than 75 per cent of all the countries in the world are north of the equator.

      • Less than one per cent of the Caribbean Islands are inhabited.

      • Fulgurite is formed when lightning strikes sand.

      • Mountains are formed by a process called orogeny.

      • Obsidian, used by American Indians for tools, weapons and ornaments, is dark volcanic glass.

      • Eighty-two per cent of the workers on the Panama Canal suffered from malaria.

      • In May 1948, New Zealand’s Mount Ruapehu and Mount Ngauruhoe both erupted simultaneously.

      • The Incas and the Aztecs were able to function without the wheel.

      • The tree on the Lebanese flag is a Cedar.

      • Tokyo was once called Edo.

      • The Atlantic Ocean covers the world’s longest mountain range.

      • In 1825, Upper Peru became Bolivia.

      • New York City contains 920km of shoreline.

      • There are three Great pyramids at Giza.

      • The southwestern tip of the Isle of Man is called ‘The Calf of Man’.

      • The world’s largest Delta was created by the River Ganges.

      • The Scottish city Edinburgh is nicknamed ‘Auld Reekie’ meaning ‘Old Smoky’.

      • The inhabitants of Papua New Guinea speak about 700 languages (including localized dialects, which are known to change from village to village), approximately 15 per cent of the world’s total.

      • The world’s first National Park was Yellowstone National Park.

      • Sixty per cent of all US potato products originate in Idaho.

      • The northernmost country claiming part of Antarctica is Norway.

      • The ‘DC’ in Washington DC stands for District of Columbia.

      • New York’s Central Park opened in 1876.

      • The inhabitants of Monaco are known as Monegasques.

      • The East Alligator River in Australia’s Northern Territory was misnamed. It contains crocodiles, not alligators.

      • France contains the greatest length of paved roads.

      • The city of Istanbul straddles two separate continents, Europe and Asia.

      • Rio de Janeiro translates to ‘River of January’.

      • The furthest point from any ocean is in China.

      • The percentage of the population that walks to work is higher in the state of Alaska that the rest of the United States.

      • The busiest stretch of highway in the US is New York’s George Washington Bridge.

      • Ropesville, Lariat and Loop are all towns in Texas.

      • Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.

      • In Venice, Venetian blinds are known as ‘Persian blinds’.

      • If you head directly south from Detroit, the first foreign country you will enter is Canada.

      • One in every three people in Israel uses a mobile phone.

      • Sixty per cent of the country of Liechtenstein’s GDP is generated from the sale of false teeth.

      • In the US, 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year.

      • Oklahoma is the US state with the highest population of Native Americans. It has no Indian Reservations.

      • The Statue of Liberty’s fingernails weigh about 100lb apiece.

      • In Kenya, they don’t drive on the right or left side of the street in particular, just on whichever side is smoother.

      • The state of Maryland has no natural lakes.

      • JELL-O [jelly] was declared the ‘official state snack’ of Utah in January 2001.

      • Scandinavian folklore records that trolls only come out at night because sunlight would turn them to stone.

      • 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire are strung across the Unites States.

      • Wyoming Valley is so difficult to find because it is in Pennsylvania.

      • After Canada and Mexico, Russia is the nearest neighbour to the United States. Siberia’s easternmost point is just 56 miles from Alaska. In fact, in the middle of the Bering Strait, Russia’s Big Diomede Island and the US’s Little Diomede Island are only two miles apart.

      • The parents of the groom pay for the weddings in Thailand.

      • One US state no longer exists. In 1784, the US had a state called Franklin, named after Benjamin Franklin. But four years later, it was incorporated into Tennessee.

      • In Tibet, there is actually a practice called ‘polyandry’ where many men, usually brothers, marry a single woman.

      • The coastline around Lake Sakawea in North Dakota is longer than the California coastline along the Pacific Ocean.

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