Mother Russia

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Deepest lake in the world as I recall. Some enormous volume of fresh water.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The USSR-China border

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Lakes in the middle of a desert?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

6th and last in series.

I asked Rob is to work on finishing the Middle East and India next.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Lakes in the middle of a desert?

Been to Australia recently? Our deserts have lakes all over them. Of course they are mostly salty dry dustpan lakes. For example, Lake Eyre (go find it on an atlas), one of the largest mostly-dry salt lakes in the world. Sometimes, it has fish in it. Big fish. Big salty stupid dead fish.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Deepest lake in the world as I recall. Some enormous volume of fresh water.

Eh? Balkhash? Balderdash! [:D]

When did they drain Lake Baikal? [:'(]

Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world as well as the largest (by volume) freshwater lake. It contains over 20% of the world's liquid fresh surface water and more than 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is a World Heritage Site. Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the largest lake-bound island in the world.[2]

Lake Baikal lies in Southern Siberia in Russia between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. In Russian, it is called Байка́л (Ozero Baykal, О́зеро literally meaning Lake, pronounced ['ozʲɪrə bʌj'kɑl]), and in the Buryat and Mongol languages it is called Dalai-Nor, or "Sacred Sea". The origin of the name Baikal comes from Baigal or Байгал which is translated from the Mongolian language as "nature". It is also known as the Blue Eye of Siberia.[1]

Very little was known about Lake Baikal until the Trans-Siberian railway was built between 1896 and 1902. The scenic loop encircling Lake Baikal required 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. At the same time the railway was being built, a large hydrogeographical expedition headed by F.K. Drizhenko produced the first detailed atlas of the contours of Baikal's depths.

The atlas demonstrated that Lake Baikal has as much water as all of North America's Great Lakes combined — 23,600 km³, about 20% of the total fresh water on the earth. However, in surface area, it is exceeded by the much shallower Great Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan, as well as by the relatively shallow Lake Victoria in East Africa.[3] Known as the "Galápagos of Russia", its age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.[4]

At 636 kilometres long and 80 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in Asia (31,494 km²) and is the deepest lake in the world (1637 metres, previously measured at 1620 metres). The bottom of the lake is 1285 metres below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km (4 miles) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–9 km (more than 5 miles) down: the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active — it widens about 2 centimeters per year. The fault zone is also seismically active: there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal

Cheers, Neilster

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Lakes in the middle of a desert?

Been to Australia recently? Our deserts have lakes all over them. Of course they are mostly salty dry dustpan lakes. For example, Lake Eyre (go find it on an atlas), one of the largest mostly-dry salt lakes in the world. Sometimes, it has fish in it. Big fish. Big salty stupid dead fish.

When the Coral Sea cyclones have enough power to punch through the Great Dividing Range, or tropical lows from the Timor or Arafura Seas sweep across Central Australia, they dump huge amounts of water in the vast, usually arid area of far western Queensland. This is what fills these huge lakes every now and again. Cooper Creek, for example, can go from being a series of dry riverbeds to an enormous torrent 200km across. About every 10 years there is a decent flood and about every 25 Lake Eyre fully fills.

A large number of species exploit these events either by travelling large distances or by waiting out the dry periods (as eggs, suspended animation etc). For a brief period the desert becomes a wetland, with wildflowers, fish, frogs. Water birds appear like magic from 2000 km away. There is a frenetic cycle of reproduction before the water eventually evaporates. Apparently it's something to behold. Lake Eyre has a Yacht Club too. They don't get to sail much.

Cheers, Neilster

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Deepest lake in the world as I recall. Some enormous volume of fresh water.

Eh? Balkhash? Balderdash! [:D]

When did they drain Lake Baikal? [:'(]

Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world as well as the largest (by volume) freshwater lake. It contains over 20% of the world's liquid fresh surface water and more than 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is a World Heritage Site. Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the largest lake-bound island in the world.[2]

Lake Baikal lies in Southern Siberia in Russia between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. In Russian, it is called Байка́л (Ozero Baykal, О́зеро literally meaning Lake, pronounced ['ozʲɪrə bʌj'kɑl]), and in the Buryat and Mongol languages it is called Dalai-Nor, or "Sacred Sea". The origin of the name Baikal comes from Baigal or Байгал which is translated from the Mongolian language as "nature". It is also known as the Blue Eye of Siberia.[1]

Very little was known about Lake Baikal until the Trans-Siberian railway was built between 1896 and 1902. The scenic loop encircling Lake Baikal required 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. At the same time the railway was being built, a large hydrogeographical expedition headed by F.K. Drizhenko produced the first detailed atlas of the contours of Baikal's depths.

The atlas demonstrated that Lake Baikal has as much water as all of North America's Great Lakes combined — 23,600 km³, about 20% of the total fresh water on the earth. However, in surface area, it is exceeded by the much shallower Great Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan, as well as by the relatively shallow Lake Victoria in East Africa.[3] Known as the "Galápagos of Russia", its age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.[4]

At 636 kilometres long and 80 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in Asia (31,494 km²) and is the deepest lake in the world (1637 metres, previously measured at 1620 metres). The bottom of the lake is 1285 metres below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km (4 miles) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–9 km (more than 5 miles) down: the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active — it widens about 2 centimeters per year. The fault zone is also seismically active: there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal

Cheers, Neilster

Actually I knew this. What I didn't know was that Balkhash was a different lake from Baikal.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Well, come to find out, ROb was working on finishing the Northern Russia (west).

Some of these are so pretty it is a shame they won't be fought over.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

East of the Kara Sea is the Arctic Ocean.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

And east of that it links up to Murmansk and Archangel.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

4th and last in series. A partial overview.

[trees trees]

way back on the very first one the weather line around the Caspian still seems to disappear. I don't think it is an issue of line thickness, I think the problem is that it blends in too well with the map, which is so ... pastel? Maybe if it were just a brighter tint it would be much easier to see.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

way back on the very first one the weather line around the Caspian still seems to disappear. I don't think it is an issue of line thickness, I think the problem is that it blends in too well with the map, which is so ... pastel? Maybe if it were just a brighter tint it would be much easier to see.

Yes. This is on my list of things to change. I need to choose 2 colors, for weather zone boundaries and for sea area boundaries that coincide with weather zone boundaries. It is the later that are hard to see.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

When the Coral Sea cyclones have enough power to punch through the Great Dividing Range, or tropical lows from the Timor or Arafura Seas sweep across Central Australia, they dump huge amounts of water in the vast, usually arid area of far western Queensland.

Gee, wouldn't one of those be nice about now.

Preferably dumping some water in Western NSW as well as this side of the dividing range.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I'll use this thread for the rest of Asia - rather than start yet one more new thread.

Here are the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. It's nice to see them complete - I have been looking at messed up versions for a long time (they run down the eastern border of the European map).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The Persian Gulf. Note that the Strait of Hormuz is not a straits hexside. Bahrain is.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd and last in series. An overview of the new coastal and river/lake bitmaps - the MidEast.

[Fishbed]

Just read about "Sinkiang" on the map...
Are the names all using the old retranscript? You don't plan to replace them with Pinyin? [&:]
 
thanks [:)]

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

Just read about "Sinkiang" on the map...
Are the names all using the old retranscript? You don't plan to replace them with Pinyin? [&:]

thanks [:)]

I was contemplating this too. Generally playing around with the Chinese transcription issues will get one 二百五.

Transcription questions were debated before
tm.asp?m=1140817&mpage=2&key=
See: posts 40 and 56.

WIF uses variants of old Wade-Giles, which was most common in WW2, but isn't consistent. We tried to make it more uniform. There seemed to be consensus to stick to Wade-Giles just for historical flavor.

That implies absolutely no bias in questions about political-
linguistical hegemonia across the Taiwan-street. In fact, I think, most Wiffers don't care for transcription. And I honestly hope that the use of Wade-Giles won't result in any problems for saling WIF to China.

Additionally, perhaps it was thought, that there already were lots of China map changes, so nobody wanted to add more "revolutions".

Personally I don't mind if it's Pinyin or Wade-Giles. And I'm open to both. I just tried to make transcription more consistent. Any corrections are welcome. Feel free, to do so! But, because of historical reasons, consistency is hard to achieve:

Canton is more commonly known then Guangzhou, same is with Peking (Beijing), Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and so on.

So sometimes Wade-Giles or other old transcriptions are still more popular, sometimes Pinyin is. And there are differences between US and European use of Chinese transcriptions as well.

Bottom-line:

1. There was a votum for (at least a level of) consistency.
2. Decision was just about historical flavor.
3. I think Patrice will get a nervous breakdown and will eat all his WIF-cardboard counters, if he has to change the Chinese transcription again... [:D]

Regards