3,546 articles
Colachi
Colachi is an andesitic-dacitic stratovolcano in Chile's Antofagasta Region, Central Andean Volcanic Arc, 5,631 m high, with Holocene-age silicic lava flows and no confirmed Holocene eruptions.
Cold Winter Deserts of Turan
Cold Winter Deserts of Turan: transnational serial UNESCO World Heritage Site (2023) of 14 desert components across Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, 3,366,441 ha, criteria (ix)(x), habitat of Saiga and Goitered Gazelle.
Colorado City Formation
Colorado City Formation: Late Triassic Dockum Group rock unit in West Texas, also ranked as Colorado City Member of the Tecovas Formation; Otis Chalk quarries, Trilophosaurus, Dromomeron gregorii, Otischalkian fauna.
Colorado Desert
This low-lying subtropical area is a subdivision of the Sonoran Desert in southeastern California. It encompasses the Salton Sea and the vast irrigation network of the Imperial Valley.
Columbia Icefield
Columbia Icefield (champ de glace Columbia): largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies, straddling the Alberta-BC Continental Divide; feeds the Athabasca, Saskatchewan, and Columbia rivers draining to three oceans.
Columbia Kootenay Mountain
Columbia Kootenay Mountain is the Kootenay Land District record for the Columbia Mountains of southeastern British Columbia: the Purcell, Selkirk, Monashee, and Caribou ranges between the Rocky Mountain Trench and the Interior Plateau, older than the Canadian Rockies.
Columbia Plateau
Columbia Plateau (Columbia Basalt Plain): volcanic plateau in eastern Washington, northern Oregon, and western Idaho, built of Columbia River Basalt Group flood basalts erupted 16.7-5.5 Ma, later shaped by Ice Age floods and irrigated agriculture.
Columbia River Gorge
Columbia River Gorge: canyon of the Columbia River through the Cascades on the Oregon–Washington border; largest US national scenic area, 292,500 acres, protected by the 1986 National Scenic Area Act.
Coma Pedrosa
Coma Pedrosa (Comapedrosa, Pic de Coma Pedrosa), 2,942 m, is the highest peak of Andorra, in La Massana parish near Arinsal, within the Valls del Comapedrosa Natural Park; first ascent 1858, GR-11 route from Arinsal.
Commander Islands
Commander Islands (Командорские острова, Komandorskiye ostrova), Russian four-island archipelago, westernmost Aleutians, 175 km east of Kamchatka; discovered 1741 when Vitus Bering was wrecked and died on Bering Island; excluded from the 1867 Alaska purchase; only village Nikolskoye.
Comoro Islands
Comoro Islands: volcanic archipelago in the Mozambique Channel (Ngazidja/Grande Comore, Anjouan, Mohéli, Mayotte). Union of the Comoros independent 1975; Mayotte stayed French; Karthala volcano 2,654 m; Swahili-influenced, agriculture- and remittance-based economy.
Compassberg
Compassberg (Kompasberg), 2,504 m, is the highest peak of the Sneeuberg range on South Africa's Great Escarpment, near Nieu-Bethesda in the Eastern Cape; a free-standing dolerite peak, second-highest in the province, with the endemic Compassberg Skolly butterfly.
Condor, El
Cerro El Cóndor (Laguna Escondida) is a 6,373 m stratovolcano in Catamarca, Argentina, one of the few large stratovolcanoes wholly in Argentina; dormant, unmonitored, with young <0.15 Ma lavas and high eruptive potential.
Conejo Valley
Conejo Valley: Southern California valley straddling Ventura and Los Angeles counties, named for the 1803 Rancho El Conejo land grant. Communities include Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, and Oak Park, served by three school districts and the 101 biotech corridor.
Congo Basin
Congo Basin (Cuvette Centrale): Central African intracratonic sedimentary basin and Congo River watershed of about 3.7 million km² across nine countries, holding the world's second-largest rainforest, Earth's largest tropical peatland complex, and about 28% of global tropical peat carbon.
Connemara
Connemara (Conamara) is a region of western County Galway, Ireland, on the Wild Atlantic Way, known for the Twelve Bens mountains, blanket bog, Connemara National Park (2,000 ha, opened 1980), Kylemore Abbey, the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, and the Connemara pony.
Copahue
Copahue is an active 2,953 m stratovolcano on the Chile-Argentina border in the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone, with an acidic crater lake, frequent mild eruptions through 2024, and a major geothermal field.
Copper Canyon
Copper Canyon (Barrancas del Cobre), a group of six interconnected canyons in Chihuahua's Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico, deeper than the Grand Canyon (Urique 1,879 m), homeland of the Rarámuri, crossed by the Chihuahua al Pacífico railway (El Chepe), inaugurated 1961.
Corbetti
Corbetti (Tchobbe, Djabi) is a 15.6 x 10.9 km caldera in the Main Ethiopian Rift, Ethiopia, last erupting VEI 5 in 396 BCE, now uplifting ~7 cm/yr and a geothermal prospect near Hawassa.
Cordillera
A cordillera is an extensive system of parallel mountain ranges, chains, and plateaus, a Spanish word first applied to the Andes and used in English from 1704.
Cordillera Blanca (range/mtn, Colombia)
Cordillera Blanca ("White Range") is a glaciated Andean range in Peru, not Colombia, reaching 6,768 m at Nevado Huascarán; the name is occasionally applied to Colombia's Central Cordillera, whose highest peak is 5,720 m.
Cordillera Castillo
Cordillera Castillo, a mountain range in Chile's Aysén Region of Patagonia, named for Cerro Castillo (2,318-2,675 m reported). Lies in Reserva Nacional Cerro Castillo (1970, 134,000 ha) on the Carretera Austral, with Cerro Palo and Cerro Peñón among its peaks.
Cordillera de Ansilta
Cordillera de Ansilta, Ansilta Range, seven-peak Andean range in San Juan Province, Argentina, north of Cerro Mercedario; highest peak Ansilta 2 at about 5,886 m, only glaciated peak Ansilta 7 (Cerro Domingo Faustino Sarmiento), first climbed by Argentine parties in the 1950s.
Cordillera de Mérida
Cordillera de Mérida (Mérida Andes, Venezuelan Andes): 350-km SW–NE mountain chain in western Venezuela, peaks near 5000 m, uplifted by Pliocene–Quaternary transpression along the Boconó fault; last glacier La Corona lost in 2023.
Cordillera Oriental (range/mtn, Colombia)
Cordillera Oriental (Eastern Cordillera), easternmost of Colombia's three Andes ranges; a bivergent fold-thrust belt of inverted Mesozoic rifts, uplifted mainly after the middle Miocene, separating the Magdalena and Llanos basins and draining to the Orinoco and Amazon.
Cordillera Real
Cordillera Real: glaciated granite range of the Bolivian Andes near La Paz, highest nonvolcanic topography in Bolivia (Illimani 6,462 m). Its tropical glaciers lost 42% of area from 1992 to 2024 and supply water to La Paz and El Alto.
Corfu (Κέρκυρα)
Corfu (Κέρκυρα, Kerkyra) is a Greek Ionian island at the entrance to the Adriatic, ruled by Venice 1386–1797 and never taken by the Ottomans; its UNESCO-listed Old Town and two fortresses date mainly to Venetian and British rule.
Corno Grande
Corno Grande (2,912 m), highest peak of the Apennines in the Gran Sasso d'Italia massif, Abruzzo; four summits, the shrinking Calderone glacier on its north side, normal route from Campo Imperatore.
Cornwall Island
Cornwall Island names several Canadian places: an uninhabited 2,358 km² Arctic island in Nunavut's Queen Elizabeth Islands, named by Belcher in 1852; a Saint Lawrence River island south of Cornwall, Ontario; and a Northwest Territories island.
Cornwallis Island (undersea feature)
Cornwallis Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica: small island NE of Elephant Island, charted by Bransfield 1820, named after Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, rising to 470 m; distinct from the Nunavut namesake.