Top 10 map facts

Australia. This is Australia map, with north at the bottom side.

At point 1. Beijing is located in northern China. Its name, which means "Northern Capital", was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing (the "Southern Capital").

France. With an area of around 643,800 km2, France is the largest country in the European Union.

Africa. This map of Africa is rotated so the continent shape resembles Australia.

Bjarni Herjólfsson. Bjarni was heading to Greenland to visit his father in 986, when he drifted south and found himself near the coast of today Canada. Despite his crew eagerness, he refused to land and only attested the discovery of a land full of trees and hills.

Mediterranean Sea. In this satellite photo of Strait of Gibraltar. The land on the left is Spain, on the right - North Africa.

Point 2. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory since 1704, when Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from the Kingdom of Castile during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne.

At point 3. Mecca was long ruled by Muhammad's descendants, the sharifs, either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger empires. It was absorbed into Saudi Arabia in 1925.

Taklamakan. The Taklamakan is the world's second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes. Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, the Taklamakan is a paradigmatic cold desert climate. During the 2008 Chinese winter storms episode, the Taklamakan was reported to be covered for the first time in its entirety with a thin layer of snow reaching 4 centimeters (1.6 in).

China's combined land border measures 22,117 km (13,743 mi) from the mouth of the Yalu River to the Gulf of Tonkin. China borders 14 nations, more than any other country except Russia, which also borders 14.