Travel to the Philippines and look up Vulcan Point, which is an island within Main Crater Lake.

Main Crater Lake is located on Volcano Island.

And Volcano Island is located in Lake Taal.

That Lake Taal is located on the island of Luzon.

And that’s how the planet has a lake within an island on a lake within an island.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level, but the tallest mountain on earth is Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea stands just 13,796 feet above the sea, but follow the mountain to its base at the bottom of the Pacific, and it is 32,808 feet.

That’s more than 3,000 feet taller than Everest.

Aside from Mt. Everest not being the tallest mountain in the world, it’s also not the closest to outer space, considering it has the highest elevation above sea level.

That distinction goes to Ecuador’s Mt. Chimborazo. See, Earth isn’t exactly round, but rather an oval, with an inflated middle.

Ecuador’s Mt. Chimborazo may only be 20,564 feet in height, but its equator location means it is closer to the stars than Mt. Everest at 29,035 feet.

Iceland is divided by the North American and European tectonic plates. Plus, it’s growing by around 5 centimeters per year. That’s due to the plates growing wider apart.

North America and South America are both moving more westward, causing the Pacific Ocean to shrink. Asia and North America get closer and closer every year as the Pacific reduces by two to three centimeters.

Russia has 11 of the 24 total timezones in the world. Waking up on one side of the country at 7 a.m., has the other side sitting down to dinner or preparing for bed.

And on the topic of time, France actually uses more time zones, 12 in fact, more than Russia or anywhere else in the world because of its overseas territories.

California may be west of Nevada, but look at the map closely and you’ll find that the City of Angels is just 86 miles east of Reno.

What’s also mind-boggling is that Nevada is close to 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

Mexico City was originally built on a lake in 1325 A.D., and is now sinking by about 3.2 feet per year.

What the Aztecs did was they filled in Lago de Texcoco to create an artificial island. Then the Spaniards created a second location atop the ruins in 1521. Majority of the locals get their water from the aquifer below the city, which has dropped around 32 feet over the last 60 years.

Here’s a rather scary thought. The San Andreas fault is “consuming” around 2 inches of California land each year.

That means if humans are still around in 15 million years, people living in Las Angeles and San Francisco will probably be neighbors.

The Philippines is an archipelago made up of 7,641 islands. That’s several hundred more than the 7,107 islands previously believed and accepted.

Thanks to new mapping research, additional land masses were revealed a few years ago, prompting “The Inquirer” to note, “The change is a reminder of how knowledge, even scientific knowledge, is a matter of faith…It’s good for our critical thinking to be reminded of the contingency of ‘expert knowledge.'”

Named for King Philip II of Spain, the country’s largest island is Luzon which has a total of 42,458 square miles.

Looking at a map has us thinking that Russia can swallow China whole, but both countries border 14 other countries.

Russia, including the region of Kaliningrad, borders Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland and the Ukraine.

China meanwhile, borders Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal. North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Vietnam.

Place your bets!

Lesotho, San Marino and Vatican City are the only three countries completely landlocked by another. Lesotho is found entirely within South Africa. San Marino and Vatican City are situated within Italy.

The Sargasso Sea is found in the Atlantic Ocean and is the only see in the world without any coasts. It is found in the North, surrounded by four ocean currents, and no land coastline to speak of. The sea gets its name from the floating seaweed that covers it: Sargassum.

Yellowstone National Park is actually on top of an active “supervolcano”. That’s a distinction for volcanoes that have had at least one explosion release more than 240 cubic miles of material.

That’s a little more than twice the volume of Lake Erie.

The Yellowstone volcano has experienced three massive eruptions, two of which did qualify as “super”. Fortunately for tourists, the last one was 640,000 years ago.

The park’s volcanic roots can be seen in its hot springs, mud pots and world-famous geysers, which attract tourists from all over the world.

Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza is considered to be one of the wonders of the world, but Sudan has almost twice the number of pyramids with 200-255 built for the Kushite kingdoms of Nubia, compared to Egypt’s 138 pyramids.

Go to the the Sahara where you can visit the ancient and reconstructed pyramids of Meroe.

Mount Augustus is not exactly a mountain, but a very large rock. It is located in the Australian Outback, standing more than 2,300 feet tall. You can see it from nearly 100 miles.

This rock is almost twice the size of Ayers Rock, the Outback’s more famous granite rock. Augustus is also 1,650 million years old.

People assume Jerusalem or Athens as the oldest city in the world, but it’s actually Damascus, Syria. It has been inhabited since at least 11,000 years ago. And it is the Arab Capital of Culture since 2008.

Damascus has more than 125 monuments which show its different periods of history going back all the way to the 3rd millennium B.C., including the Great Mosque of the Umayyads, built in the 8th century. The city is currently home to 1.7 million people.

Africa is the only continent in the world to sit in all four hemispheres. It covers nearly 12 million square miles and 6 percent of the earth’s total surface.

Africa is made up of 54 countries, the largest being Algeria. But go north, south, east, and west to see what we mean.

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is around 400 miles in length. Scientists also think there are still 200 more miles of unexplored caves, making this cave system the largest on the planet.

Tourists can visit portions of the caves at Mammoth Cave National Park. Let’s hope they discover more too.

Istanbul, located in both Europe and Asia, has the Bosphorus Strait running down its middle. Cross the Bosporus Bridge between the two sides, and you’ll have the European side serving as the commercial and historical center.

The largest city in Turkey, and largest city on two continents, has a 2,000-year-old history. It once served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires.

Other cities resting in two continents:

• Suez (El Qantara), Egypt (Africa and Asia)
• Orenburg, Magnitogorsk, Pervouralsk and Yekaterinburg, Russia (Europe and Asia)
• Atyrau and Oral, Kazakhstan (Europe and Asia)
• Çanakkale, Turkey (Europe and Asia)
• Panama City (North and South America)

New York and Los Angeles are both more populated than any town in Alaska, but on land mass alone, Alaska has some of the largest cities in the United States.

Sitka, Alaska, has a little more than 10,000 residents, but the city is more than 2,800 square miles. Compare that to New York City, which is just 302 square miles.

Juneau has more than 31,000 people, and it sits on 2,700 square miles.

Tiny Wrangell, Alaska, spreads across more than 2,500 square miles with a little over 2,300 residents.

Then there’s Anchorage at 1,704 square miles, with 301,000 inhabitants.

The Northern Hemisphere is the chosen home of around 90 percent of the Earth’s population. There are 7.3 billion people in the planet, but 6.57 billion of them live north of the equator in North America, Europe, most of Africa and Asia and even some areas of South America.

The Mariana Trench is the deepest place on the surface of Earth. It has a small depression called the Challenger Deep which is the deepest part of the trench. The depression goes down to depths of around 35,814 feet.

Buying a ticket for a train across Russia means you’ll have to set aside seven days. The trip is a direct route that doesn’t stop as it crosses all 11 time zones.

The railway crosses Russia’s 16 largest rivers, the Volga included, then there’s 3,901 bridges along 62 miles of bridgework to follow.

Temperatures can hit up to 136 degrees Fahrenheit, and Northern Africa’s Sahara Desert doesn’t really get that cold for snow, but it does happen.

The Sahara averages 86 degrees, but when a chill sets in at night, the place averages 55 degrees. In January 2018, the Sahara received snow after 40 years. Previous snowfall was recorded in 2016 and 1979.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches 1,429 miles along the coastline of Australia. It is the home to a reef in the shape of a heart that’s very visible from above.

A pilot first spotted the heart in 1975. Just 55 feet in diameter, it is a part of Hardy Reef in Whitsundays. Tourists cannot visit by boat, since the reef is heavily protected.

Are you ready for this? Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.

So instead of going by this 21-word name, the city just went with: Bangkok.

This name is the longest real name of any place on the planet.

Nine percent of Canada is a freshwater lake. The country has 31,752 lakes, meaning they have more lakes than anywhere else in the world.

They are impressive too, as 561 of Canada’s lakes measure more than 62 square miles. That’s a lot of water.

New York City’s towering skyscrapers are so epic, that some have their own zip codes. The Empire State Building, MetLife Building, the Woolworth Building and the Chrysler Building are some of those with their own.

Size isn’t a deciding factor either, since the tallest building there, One World Trade Center, does not have its own zip code.

Mail volume is a primary determinant. Like the Empire State Building, which has 150 businesses that receive mail. That was enough for them to get a zip code of their own.