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CHINA

The Yangtze River or Chang Jiang is about 6,380 km long, the third longest in the world. The most famous part of this route is the Three Gorges area between Chongqing and Wuhan and many cruise ships operate in this section. The landscape has changed considerably with the recent enormous Three Gorges Dam project, but the dam itself has become an important tourist attraction.

UNITED ARABEMIRATES

Camel racing is to be transformed as a spectator sport in the UAE with robot riders taking the place of child jockeys. The remotely operated riders were developed following a ban on the use of jockeys under 16 years of age, imposed in 2004. Riders had traditionally been younger than 16 and weighed less than 7 stone and human rights groups had linked camel racing to the kidnap and mistreatment of children as young as four years old.

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a tourist attraction commissioned by the Hualapai Indian tribe, opened in 2007. The horseshoe-shaped glass walkway's advertised 1,200 metre (4,000 foot) height above the floor of the canyon exceeds those of the world's largest skyscrapers.

USAARIZONA

Mirny in Siberia (population 40,000) is the location of one of the world’s deepest diamond mines. The pit was founded in 1955 and is 525 m deep and has a diameter of 1.25 km.

RUSSIA

TAIWAN

Taiwan's high-speed railway has signs outside stations reading Kiss and Ride in English, although few local people understand what this means, and Chinese characters above the words that read "temporary pick up and drop off zone". Kiss and ride is a place where cars, often driven by a husband or wife, can drop off passengers in the morning and pick them up in the evening.

The three pyramids of Giza stand on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, about 12 miles southwest of Cairo city centre. The complex consists of the Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure as well as the Great Sphinx. The town of Giza is now part of the Greater Cairo conurbation.

EGYPT

SWITZERLAND

Poire William is a pear brandy, often with a whole pear in the bottle. Bottles are placed over the budding pears while they are on the tree and when the pear is fully grown the bottle is removed and filled wirh ‘eau de vie’.

The Berlin Wall, known in the Soviet Union and in the German Democratic Republic as the "Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart," was a separation barrier between West and East Germany. The wall divided East and West Berlin for 28 years, from 1961 until it was dismantled in 1989. Little is left of the Wall, which was destroyed almost everywhere and only three sections still stand as memorials.

GERMANY

VATICAN CITY

The Swiss Guard, founded in 1506, is part of the Military of the Vatican City and is a small force (134 members) responsible for the security of the Vatican and the safety of the Pope. Recruits have to be Catholic, and have been born in Switzerland and trained with the Swiss Army. Its official language is German.

UGANDA

Lake flies often swarm in huge numbers around Lake Victoria. They can cause problems because of the piles that build up when they die, but are harmless as they do not bite, unlike the mosquitoes they resemble. They are an important source of food for Lake Victoria fish and local birds, frogs, and reptiles.

Public housing estates are housing estates mainly built by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society. About half of Hong Kong residents now live in public housing estates and other tower blocks with some form of subsidy. Rents are cheaper than ordinary housing, and are heavily subsidised They are usually located in the remote or less accessible parts of the territory and the vast majority of the estates are high-rise buildings.

CHINA(HONG KONG)

Lake Natron is a saline lake in Africa's Great Rift Valley. The lake is shallow, less than 3 metres deep and its colour is characteristic of those where there is high evaporation. As water evaporates during the dry season, salinity levels increase to the point that salt-loving microorganisms begin to thrive. The red pigment in the bacteria produce the deep reds of the open water of the lake and provide food for flamingos.

TANZANIA

The Great Hanshin or Kobe earthquake measured 6.9 on the Richter scale. It occurred on January 17, 1995 at 5:46:46 am and lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The epicentre of the earthquake was 20 km away from the city of Kobe and 6,434 people, mainly in the city, lost their lives. Damage from the earthquake is kept intact at the Earthquake Memorial Park near the port of Kobe.

JAPAN

The Dresdner Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) was destroyed by firebombing during World War II. The building vanished from Dresden's skyline, and the stones lay in a pile in the centre of the city for the next 45 years during the Communist rule of East Germany. After reunification and 13 years of rebuilding, the church was reconsecrated in 2005.

GERMANY

A Fairy Chimney is a conical rock formation, typically found in the Cappadocia region of Turkey where a thick layer of tuff (consolidated volcanic ash) is covered by a thin layer of basalt that is more resistant to erosion than the underlying tuff. The Chimneys are formed where a small cap or boulder of the original basalt remains, and protects a cone of tuff beneath it from erosion. Eventually, the tuff will be undercut and the cap falls off, and the remaining cone is then quickly eroded.

TURKEY

Brussels has a Cartoon Museum and a Cartoon Film Festival. Tintin (Hergé), and the Smurfs (Peyo), were created here. There are over 50 Cartoon Murals on walls throughout Brussels organised by the Brussels city authorities, with the help of the Belgian Comic Strip Centre.

BELGIUM

Larabanga is a town in north western Ghana. It is known for its mud-built, white-washed mosque, said to date from the 15th century when the trans-Saharan trade was at its height. It houses a copy of the Qur'an almost as old as the mosque itself.

GHANA

SWITZERLAND

Transhumance is the seasonal movement of livestock between lowland pastures and alpine meadows. Herders and their animals move up into alpine meadows as the snow retreats. Both the ascent and the descent, the alpabfahrt, in autumn, are cause for local celebration and are marked by the wearing of traditional costume and the decoration of the cows.

The Corinth Canal is a canal connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea. The canal is 6.3 km in length and was built between 1881 and 1893. The canal is nowadays mostly used by tourist ships and it saves a 400 km long journey, but as it is only 21 m wide, it is too narrow for most modern ocean freighters. 11,000 ships a year travel through the waterway.

GREECE

UKRAINE

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is considered a relatively safe to visit, and several Ukrainian companies offer guided tours of the area. The radiation levels have dropped rapidly as time has passed, although radiation levels in close proximity to the Chernobyl Power Plant itself are still at almost the same level as in 1986. When touring in close proximity to the Power Plant, visitors are usually provided with a hazmat suit, a gas mask, and most importantly, a Geiger counter.

02 CHINA Yangtze River (Chang Jiang)03 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Robot jockey camel racing04 USA ARIZONA Grand Canyon Skywalk 05 RUSSIA Mirny diamond mine06 TAIWAN Kiss and Ride07 EGYPT Pyramids of Giza08 SWITZERLAND Poire William09 GERMANY Berlin Wall10 VATICAN CITY Swiss Guard11 UGANDA Lake flies 12 CHINA (HONG KONG) Public housing13 TANZANIA Lake Natron14 JAPAN Kobe earthquake15 GERMANY Dresden Frauenkirche 16 TURKEY Cappadocia fairy chimneys17 BELGIUM Brussels cartoon murals18 GHANA Larabanga mosque19 SWITZERLAND Transhumance20 GREECE Corinth Canal 21 UKRAINE Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Geography

What on Earth?