Geography Archives – THE PAGE TURNS

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

Q is for Qatar

Fast Facts:

Named for: Ancient land of Catarhei, according to Pliny the Elder.
Capital: Doha
Long/Lat: 25.2 N/51.3 E, 8000 miles and 16 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 3.2 million, or 48 CVs. Approx 90% are migrant workers or expatriates.
Size: 4400 sq mi, 240 CVs. High population density.
Avg temp in April: 93 F/32 C
Median household income: $75,000 annually
Ethnicity: 48% Arab, 43% South Asian
Main industries: Oil, trade, commerce, tourism

Qatar is the only country that starts with a “Q,” and I never do this challenge if I can’t manage the Q, so there you go. Even though I just wrote of Oman, here we are again at another country right in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz.

In fact, yesterday the NYTimes pointed out that Qatar is between a rock and a hard place. That is, they are friendly with the U.S., meaning strong business ties and a military base, but they are also on good relations with Iran. Neither country is cheerful about dealing with a compromiser. As a result, Qatar has been subject to 700 missile and drone attacks since the Trump War started.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

The Panama Canal: 500 Lives per Mile

The original Panama Canal still operates a century later. Kajmeister photo.

A grand vision. Incredible hubris. Stupidity and poor planning. Thousands of lives lost. A miracle of modern science and engineering. A doorway between oceans. The Panama Canal was–and is–all of these things.

Yesterday, I wrote my A to Z post about the country of Panama. But I mentioned the serendipity of being in Panama while it was time to write about Panama. And the first thing anyone usually thinks about Panama is The Canal.

Knowing I was planning this trip through the canal, Nan, one of my chickleball friends, recommended an excellent history of the canal: David McCullough’s The Pathway through the Seas. It earned a Pulitzer Prize 50 years ago, and for good reason. I had to speed-read the last of the 600 pages, just finishing it it in time–phew! otherwise, we would have been stuck in the locks. Spoiler: they did it. It was cray-cray. Herein, I will give you the speed version, 2000 words instead of 600 pages, the How, Why, and What the Canal was all about.

Before the Canal, there was a 50-mi (roughly) stretch of mountains and jungles. There was a railroad, but railroads can’t carry ships, and the Chagres River limited what ships could traverse it. Photo from mapsland.

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026

P is for Panama

The country of Panama, on the isthmus situated between Costa Rica and Colombia.

Fast Facts

Named for: Possibly “butterflies” or “bannaba”=distant place or “place of many fish,” both in indigenous tongue.
Capital: Panama City
Long/Lat: 8.6 N/79.3 W, only 6 hours or 3000 miles SE of Castro Valley. Very close to the equator.
Population: 4.3 million, 65 Castro Valleys
Size: 29,000 sq mi, or 1600 Castro Valleys
Avg temp in April: 90 F/32 C (humidity 85%/ CV usually around 70%)
Median household income: $7,800
Ethnicity: 65% mestizo (mixed), 12% indigenous, 10% Black, 7% white.
Main industries: Trade, commerce, shrimp, copper, hydropower

Sometimes there is serendipity; the stars align. Things can be helped along by choice, but happy accidents may begin the process. Today is the day to write a post on “P” and today, as it happens, we are going through the Panama Canal. The A to Z challenge meets the travel blogs! Due to this exciting circumstance, I will write two posts. Today, I will cover the country of Panama in the same fashion as before, A through O. Tomorrow we will talk about the reason for the trip: going through the Canal.

The Most Ancient History of Panama

Today, let’s focus on early pre-Canal history. Really early, 200 million years ago: Pangaea.

If long-lived intelligent beings were to look through a telescope at this part of Earth, they might ask, Can’t they make up their minds? First, it’s all land, then it’s all sea, then land, then sea, then land… In other words: Pangaea, the Central American Seaway (CAS), the isthmus, the canal, then all the bridges. Humans want all the ways to go, sometimes through the water and sometimes on the roads.