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A comment on China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated. Parent comment

Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by lvturner on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @04:33AM (#23829720)
China is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to China.

Butchering of Douglas Adams' work aside, it's true, having taken a train a few times across bits of mainland China - it just. does. not. stop. and you can witness constant construction too.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by thaumasiotes on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @04:38AM (#23829747)
> China is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.

China is almost exactly the same size as the United States.

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by smcgaw on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:05AM (#23829876)
There's probably more than a few of us on HN from smaller countries who would also find the size of the US mind-boggling.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by kaybe on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:39AM (#23830052)
Especially us from higher latitudes whose worldview is influenced by the Mercator projection.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by arethuza on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:48AM (#23830082)
A useful link that helps with that problem:

https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTYxNDU5OTQ.MzgwMzc5Mg*...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by hombre_fatal on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:12AM (#23830202)
Great site.

Never realized Greenland fits inside the USA. Dragging a country to/from the poles really establishes how ridiculous the projection is.

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by arethuza on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @07:27AM (#23830631)
I don't think it's fair to say it is ridiculous - it has pros and cons - with the distortion of areas towards the poles definitely being one of the latter

https://connectusfund.org/13-major-pros-and-cons-of-mercator...

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by thaumasiotes on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:43AM (#23830390)
> Dragging a country to/from the poles really establishes how ridiculous the projection is.

I mean, the pole is an infinitesimal point that _any_ rectangular projection must expand to the size of the equator.

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by blueblisters on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:38AM (#23830045)
Undoubtedly, the United States is huge. But a large chunk of the US (Alaska) is separated from the contiguous landmass. It dilutes the perception of size relative to China.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by blackrock on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:50AM (#23830090)
The melting permafrost of Alaska, Canada, and Russia, are about to become prime real estate in the next few centuries.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by phaemon on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:38AM (#23830359)
Well, they're going to become vast, mosquito-infested swamps. Whether you regard that as "prime real estate" probably depends if you're an estate agent or not.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by blueblisters on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:04AM (#23830166)
I hear this a lot. Is there any reason why people are not scooping up Canadian wilderness properties right now?
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by blackrock on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:14AM (#23830208)
Well, it’s not going to become valuable for probably another 6 generations. You’ll be long dead by then, but your great great great great ancestors might benefit from it.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by arethuza on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:21AM (#23830261)
A lot of it is the Canadian Shield - which probably isn't the most desirable property (thankfully):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by TMWNN on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @12:15PM (#23833745)
Because climate change isn't going to make the Canadian Shield, and muskeg, any more valuable than it is now.

To put another way, if muskeg were worth using, it would have been used a century ago.

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by lvturner on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:20AM (#23829959)
I was not just referring to China's acreage. China is also very big vertically - and this vertical building is not just limited to a handful of cities.

Being originally from Scotland, almost every large country or city is mind-blowingly big as far as I'm concerned :)

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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by Ekaros on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:50AM (#23830091)
It is quite eye opening when you hear of name of some "smaller" Chinese city you have never heard of and then go look the population only to find it to be in millions.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by cvhashim on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @10:03AM (#23832066)
A friend of mine in college was an international student from China. He was from a city I had never heard of and it boasted a population of 7 million people.
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by yorwba on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @06:08AM (#23830183)
And there are 113 cities with more than a million inhabitants in China: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chinas-113-cities-one-milli...
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Re:China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated by arethuza on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @05:24AM (#23829989)
Being in Scotland I see that as a feature not a bug ;-)
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