USA - Washington - Vancouver

A mapcard of Washington State featuring a town Vancouver.

Sent by Shari from Vancouver in Washington, USA.

Vancouver (/vænˈkuːvər/ van-KOO-vər) is a city in Clark County, Washington, United States, located on the north bank of the Columbia River. It had a population of 190,915 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Washington. Founded in 1825 and incorporated in 1857, the city was originally established around Fort Vancouver, a fur trading outpost, and is situated directly north of Portland, Oregon, along the Washington–Oregon border. Vancouver serves as the county seat of Clark County and is part of the Portland metropolitan area.

Vancouver shares its name with the larger city of Vancouver in southern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 300 miles (480 km) to the north. Both cities were named after British sea captain George Vancouver, but the U.S. city is older. Vancouver, British Columbia, was incorporated 29 years after the incorporation of Vancouver, Washington, and more than 60 years after the name Vancouver was first used in reference to the historic Fort Vancouver trading post on the Columbia River. City officials have periodically suggested changing the U.S. city's name to Fort Vancouver to reduce confusion with its larger and better-known northern neighbor. Many Pacific Northwest residents distinguish between the two cities by referring to the Canadian city as "Vancouver, B.C." and the United States city as "Vancouver, Washington", or "Vancouver, USA". Local nicknames formerly included "Vantucky" (though this is used as a derogatory term) and "The 'Couv(e)" (read more).

USA - Minnesota - SPAM™ Town USA

Austin, Minnesota, also known as  SPAM™ USA, is the home of Hormel Foods Corporation, manufacturer of world-faous SPAM® products. In SPAM™ Town USA, you can visit the world's only SPAM® Museum; see the stately home of George A. Hormel; walk the picturesque 278-acre Hormel Nature Center or purchase unique SPAM® product merchandise at the SPAM® MUSEUM Gift Shop or online at SPAM.com.

Sent by Sharon from Montana, USA.

The Spam Museum is an admission-free museum in Austin, Minnesota, dedicated to Spam, a brand of canned precooked meat products made by Hormel Foods Corporation. The museum tells the history of the Hormel company, the origin of Spam, and its place in world culture.

The Spam Museum originated in January 1991 as the Hormel Foods First Century Museum, when Hormel opened a small storefront company museum in celebration of the company's 100 year anniversary. Originally located in Austin's Oak Park Mall, Hormel later re-branded it as the Spam Museum.

A much-larger Spam-focused museum opened in September 2001. The 16,500-square foot space included a theater, historical displays, family activities and games, and a gift shop. The lobby of the museum featured a wall of Spam with more than 3,300 Spam cans and, for many years, the theatre showed a short film entitled "SPAM: A Love Story." The Spam Museum temporarily closed in September 2014 to move to a new, more accessible downtown location (read more).

USA - Nevada - Lake Las Vegas

World class, 2,600 acre Lake Las Vegas resort features luxury Hotels and Gaming Casino's, a full service Marina, three challenging signature golf courses, health spas, gourmet restaurants and fine shopping.

Sent by MSG (R) Thomas from Washington, USA.

Lake Las Vegas is a 320-acre (130 ha) reservoir in Henderson, Nevada, with a 3,592-acre (1,454 ha) developed area around it. The area is sometimes referred to as the Lake Las Vegas Resort. It is being developed by 5 companies including Lake at Las Vegas Joint Venture LLC.

The area includes three resorts including the Aston MonteLago Village Resort, the Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort, and the Hilton Lake Las Vegas.

The earthen impoundment that forms the reservoir is 192 ft (59 m) tall, 4,800 ft (1,500 m) in length, and 716 ft (218 m) wide at its base. It contains roughly the same amount of dirt as Hoover Dam does concrete, and impounds 10,000 acre-feet (12,000,000 m³) of water. Since the reservoir was built in the channel of the Las Vegas Wash – the valley's only storm runoff outlet – a bypass was built for the wash beneath the reservoir and dam allowing it to remain connected to Lake Mead via two 84-inch (2.1 m) diameter pipes. After falling into substantial disrepair, the pipes – which are owned by the city of Henderson, but maintained by the resort – were repaired in 2009 at a cost of $3 million. Above the entrance to the bypass is a flood control structure, which permit excess flood waters of the Las Vegas Wash to be diverted into Lake Las Vegas (read more).

USA - California - State Capitol Building (3)

CALIFORNIA STATE CAPITOL

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

The beautiful State Capitol Building, surrounded by the forty-acre Capitol Park, is a downtown Sacramento landmark. The State Capitol Building was completely restored to its original beauty in  1984. Visitors here can see the California Senate and Assembly Chambers in operation.

Sent by Will from California, USA.

The California State Capitol is the seat of the California state government, located in Sacramento, the state capital of California. The building houses the chambers of the California State Legislature, made up of the Assembly and the Senate, along with the office of the governor of California. The Neoclassical structure, designed by Reuben S. Clark, was completed between 1861 and 1874. Located at the west end of Capitol Park and the east end of the Capitol Mall, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The California State Capitol Museum is housed on the grounds of the capitol.

The structure was completed between 1860 and 1874, designed by architect Reuben S. Clark of Clark & Kenitzer, one of San Francisco's oldest architectural firms, founded in 1854. Although not generally considered earthquake country, Sacramento was hit by two earthquakes within days of each other in 1892 which damaged the Capitol. The Capitol was remodeled, adding seventy rooms and elevators, between 1906 and 1908 (read more).

USA - Idaho - Pocatello

Pocatello has long been the transportation and business hub of southeastern Idaho. A proud city with a historic past, Pocatello ia a ix of old and new along the old Oregon Trail.

Sent by unoriginalusername from Idaho.

Pocatello (/ˈpoʊkəˈtɛloʊ/) is the county seat of and the largest city in Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, containing the city's airport. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho.

As of the 2020 census, the population of Pocatello was 56,320. Pocatello is the 6th most populous city in the state, just behind Caldwell.

The city is at an elevation of 4,462 feet (1,360 m) above sea level and it sits on the Portneuf River in the Snake River Plain ecoregion. Pocatello covers a land area of 33.36 square miles (86.4 square kilometers).

Pocatello is the home of Idaho State University and the manufacturing facilities of Amy's Kitchen and ON Semiconductor Corporation; it is served by the Pocatello Regional Airport (read more).

USA - Illinois - State Flower

Violet, State Flower of Illinois.

Sent by Pat from Illinois, USA.

Viola, commonly known as the violets, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Violaceae. It is the largest genus in the family, containing over 680 species. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere; however, some are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes.

Some Viola species are perennial plants, some are annual plants, and a few are small shrubs. Many species, varieties and cultivars are grown in gardens for their ornamental flowers. In horticulture, the term pansy is normally used for those multi-colored large-flowered cultivars which are raised annually or biennially from seed and used extensively in bedding (read more).

USA - Illinois - State Capitol Building

ILLINOIS STATE CAPITOL

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

Construction was started in 1868. Twenty one years later, in 1889, the capitol building was completed.

Sent by Lorie from Winsconsin, near the border of Illinois.

The Illinois State Capitol, located in Springfield, Illinois, houses the legislative and executive branches of the government of the U.S. state of Illinois. Becoming the seat of the legislature in 1876, the current building is the sixth to serve as the capitol building since Illinois was admitted to the United States in 1818. Built in the architectural styles of the French Renaissance and Italianate, it was designed by Cochrane and Garnsey, an architectural and design firm based in Chicago. Ground was broken for the new capitol structure on March 11, 1868, and the building was completed twenty years later for a total cost of $4.5 million.

The building contains the two legislative chambers for the bicameral General Assembly of Illinois, which is made up of the lower chamber of the Illinois House of Representatives and the upper house of the Illinois Senate. A ceremonial office for the Governor of Illinois and additional executive branch offices, additional offices for legislators and staff, plus conference and committee rooms are also in the landmarked building. The Illinois Capitol's footprint is cross-shaped, with four equal wings. Its tall central rotunda and upper dome and tower roofs are covered in zinc metal alloy to provide a silvery facade which does not weather or corrode. (Zinc mining was productive in the state throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.) Architectural scholar Jean A. Follett describes it as a building that "is monumental in scale and rich in detail." The interior of the dome features a plaster circular frieze painted to resemble bronze, which illustrates scenes from Illinois state history, and stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the Illinois state seal in the center-top oculus of the dome, above the rotunda (read more).

USA - California - Sacramento

Sacramento, California

State Capitol Building

Sent by Debie from California, USA.

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley. It is the fourth-most populous city in Northern California, sixth-most populous city in the state, and 35th-most populous city in the United States with a population of 524,943 at the 2020 census, while the Sacramento metropolitan area with 2.46 million residents is the 27th-largest metropolitan area in the nation.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area was inhabited by the Nisenan, Maidu, and other indigenous peoples of California. In 1808, Spanish cavalryman Gabriel Moraga surveyed and named the Río del Santísimo Sacramento (Sacramento River), after the Blessed Sacrament. In 1839, Juan Bautista Alvarado, Mexican governor of Alta California, granted the responsibility of colonizing the Sacramento Valley to Swiss-born Mexican citizen John Augustus Sutter, who subsequently established Sutter's Fort and the settlement at the Rancho Nueva Helvetia. Following the American Conquest of California and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the waterfront developed by Sutter began to be developed and incorporated in 1850 as the City of Sacramento. In 1852, the city offered its county courthouse to the state of California to house the state legislature, resulting in the city becoming the permanent state capital in 1854 and ushering in the construction of a new state capitol building which was finished in 1874.

Sacramento is the seat of the California Legislature and the governor of California. It is a major center for the California healthcare industry, as the seat of Sutter Health, UC Davis Medical Center, and the UC Davis School of Medicine. In 2013, the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau stated that the city receives 15.3 million visitors per year, and is home to the California Museum, Crocker Art Museum, California State Railroad Museum, California State Capitol Museum, the Sacramento Convention Center Complex, and Old Sacramento State Historic Park (read more).

Canada - British Columbia - Prince George

PRINCE GEORGE

British Columbia, Canada

Prince George is situated at the confluence of two major rivers. As "Spruce Capital" of the world, the forest industry plays amajor role in its economy.

Sent by Deanna from Prince George in British Columbia, Canada.

Prince George is a city in British Columbia, Canada, situated at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers. The city itself has a population of 76,708; the metro census agglomeration has a population of 89,490. It is often called the province's "northern capital" because it serves as a centre for higher education, health care, government services, arts and entertainment, sports, and support for major industries such as forest products and mining.

The origins of Prince George can be traced to the North West Company fur trading post of Fort George, which was established in 1807 by Simon Fraser and named in honour of King George III. The post was centred in the centuries-old homeland of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, whose name means "people of the confluence of the two rivers." The Lheidli T'enneh name began to see official use around the 1990s and the band is otherwise historically referred to as Fort George Indian Band (read more).

China - Sichuan - Zigong UNESCO Global Geopark

Traditional salt well structure in Zigong, Sichuan Province, China.

Sent by Huang Peijin from Zigong, China.

Zigong UNESCO Global Geopark lies in Zigong City, Sichuan Province, China, in the Asia-Pacific region. Zigong UNESCO Global Geopark belongs to the Ziliujing Depression of the Sichuan syncline on the Yangtze Platform. It connects with the southern margin of Weiyuan-Longnusi uplift on the north, the southern Sichuan lower folded zone on the southeast and the Liangshan folded zone on the southwest. The geoheritage in Zigong UNESCO Global Geopark is dominated by the extremely abundant dinosaur fossils and other vertebrate fossils, the typical Jurassic section and complete salt production relics. Most of this geoheritage is of national and international significance in scientific research. The widely distributed Jurassic terrestrial strata in the UNESCO Global Geopark yields a great amount of dinosaur and other vertebrate fossils, commonly forming large-scale taphonomic assemblages. Zigong UNESCO Global Geopark is rich in salt mines, with a production history of about two thousand years. A variety of the salt industry relics have been well preserved (read more).

China - Shanghai - Pudong Financial District

A cityscape with a prominent river and several tall skyscrappers, including the Shanghai Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center, in Pudong financial district in Shanghai, China.

Sent by Yuan Cheng from Shanghai, China.

Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name Pudong was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city center. It now refers to the broader Pudong New Area, a state-level new area which extends all the way to the East China Sea.

The traditional area of Pudong is now home to the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone and the Shanghai Stock Exchange and many of Shanghai's best-known buildings, such as the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, and the Shanghai Tower. These modern skyscrapers directly face Puxi's historic Bund, a remnant of former foreign concessions in China. The rest of the new area includes the Port of Shanghai, the Shanghai Expo and Century Park, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the Jiuduansha Wetland Nature Reserve, Nanhui New City, and the Shanghai Disney Resort.

Pudong—literally "The East Bank of the Huangpu River"—originally referred only to the less-developed land across from Shanghai's Old City and foreign concessions. The area was mainly farmland and only slowly developed, with warehouses and wharfs near the shore administered by the districts of Puxi on the west bank: Huangpu, Yangpu, and Nanshi. Pudong was originally established as a county in 1958 until 1961 when the county was split among Huangpu, Yangpu, Nanshi, Wusong and Chuansha County (read more).

USA - Illinois - Brookfield Zoo

Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.

Sent by Matt from Chicago, USA.

Brookfield Zoo Chicago, known until 2024 as simply Brookfield Zoo, and also known as the Chicago Zoological Park, is a zoo located in Brookfield, Illinois. Brookfield Zoo is owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and is managed by the Chicago Zoological Society. It is the largest zoo in the Chicago metropolitan area and houses approximately 511 species of animals in an area of 216 acres (87 ha).

Brookfield Zoo opened on July 1, 1934, and quickly gained international recognition for using moats and ditches instead of cages. The zoo was also the first in the United States to exhibit giant pandas, one of which (Su Lin) has been taxidermied and put on display in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. In 1960 the zoo opened the first fully indoor bottlenose dolphin exhibit in the United States, and in the 1980s the zoo introduced the first fully indoor tropical rainforest simulation exhibit, which was the largest indoor zoo exhibit in the world at that time. It is often listed as one of the best zoos in the United States (read more).

Benin - Floating Village Market in Ganvie

Floating villae market in Ganvie in Benin, a unique lifestyle of communities residing in floating villages, where daily life, including commerce, takes place on the water.

Sent by my good friend Taouvik of Togo who lives near the border of Togo-Benin.

Ganvie is a lake village in Benin, Africa, lying in Lake Nokoué, near Cotonou. With a population of around 20,000 people, it is probably the largest lake village in Africa and is very popular with tourists.

The village was created in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries by the Tofinu people who took to the lake to avoid Fon warriors who were taking people hostage to sell them to European enslavers. Making the shallow waters and islands of Lake Nokoue a haven, the Ganvie villagers are often referred to as "water men" and the area itself is often called the "Venice of Africa."

Originally based on farming, the village's main industries other than tourism are now fishing and fish farming. The only means of transportation to and from the village is through wooden boats.

The village was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on October 31, 1996 in the Cultural category.

Ganvie, like many areas of Benin, is home to a constituent monarchy (read more).

Benin - Cotonou

Red Star Square and view of Cotonou, a city in Benin.

 

Sent by my good friend Taouvik of Togo who lives near the border of Togo-Benin.

Cotonou (French pronunciation: [kɔtɔnu]; Fon: Kútɔ̀nú) is the largest city and seat of government of Benin. Its official population count was 679,012 inhabitants in 2012; however, over two million people live in the larger urban area.

The urban area continues to expand, notably toward the west. The city lies in the southeast of the country, between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Nokoué.

Cotonou is the seat of government of the Republic of Benin, where most of the government buildings are situated, government departments operate and foreign embassies are located, but the official capital, where the national legislature sits, is the smaller city of Porto-Novo.

The name "Cotonou" means "by the river of death" in the Fon language. At the beginning of the 19th century, Cotonou (then spelled "Kutonou") was a small fishing village, and is thought to have been formally founded by King Ghezo of Dahomey in 1830. It grew as a centre for the slave trade, and later palm oil and cotton. In 1851 the French Second Republic made a treaty with King Ghezo that allowed them to establish a trading post at Cotonou. During the reign of King Glele (1858–89), the territory was ceded to the Second French Empire by a treaty signed in 1878. In 1883, the French Navy occupied the city to prevent British conquest of the area (read more).