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Coromandel Coast (சோழமண்டலம்)
Coromandel Coast (சோழமண்டலம், Cholamandalam): southeastern coast of India on the Bay of Bengal in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, named for the Chola kingdom; over 644 km from Point Calimere to the Krishna delta, a major cloth-exporting maritime region.
Coromandel Peninsula
Coromandel Peninsula: mountainous volcanic peninsula in New Zealand's North Island, named after HMS Coromandel (1820). Known for 1860s gold rushes, kauri logging, Cathedral Cove, Hot Water Beach, and over 72,000 hectares of conservation land.
Corregidor
Corregidor: tadpole-shaped fortified island (5.5 sq km) at the entrance of Manila Bay, Philippines; Spanish, American, and Japanese fortress; fell May 1942, retaken 1945; now a national war shrine with Malinta Tunnel and Pacific War Memorial.
Cotopaxi
Cotopaxi is a glacier-clad Ecuadorian stratovolcano, 5,911 m, about 60 km southeast of Quito, one of the world's highest active volcanoes, known for the catastrophic 1877 lahars and eruptions in 2015 and 2022–2023.
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a 790-square-mile Jurassic limestone range in England, designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (National Landscape) since 1966, the largest AONB, spanning five counties and shaped by the medieval wool trade.
Cozumel
Cozumel (Kùutsmil, Maya island) is an island and municipality in Quintana Roo, Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea off the Yucatán coast. It is the world's busiest cruise port of call, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2016, a Pueblo Mágico, and home to the San Gervasio Maya site and the rare Cozumel fox.
Cradle of Humankind
Cradle of Humankind: UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 1999) in Gauteng, South Africa, a 47,000-hectare area of dolomite caves including Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, and Kromdraai, source of the Taung Child, Mrs Ples, and Little Foot hominin fossils.
Craighead Caverns
Craighead Caverns, also known as the Lost Sea, near Sweetwater, Tennessee: a show cave and Registered National Landmark holding America's largest underground lake, over 13 acres mapped by divers, second worldwide behind Namibia's Dragon's Breath Cave.
Crannog
Crannog (Irish crannóg, Scottish Gaelic crannag): an artificial or partly artificial island dwelling built in lakes and estuaries of Scotland and Ireland, from the Iron Age into the medieval period, with about 400 Scottish and 1,500 Irish sites.
Crazy Peak (mountain, United States)
Crazy Peak, highest summit of the Crazy Mountains island range in Sweet Grass County, Montana, about 11,214-11,224 ft with roughly 5,724 ft of prominence; Crow vision quest site of Chief Plenty Coups.
Cres
Cres is the largest Croatian island (405.7 km²) in the Kvarner Gulf of the Adriatic, 66 km long, with karst Lake Vrana supplying water to Cres and Lošinj, a history from Liburnians through Venetian rule, and griffon vulture reserves.
Crêt de la Neige
Crêt de la Neige, summit in Ain, France, long called the highest point of the Jura massif at about 1,720 m; a 2024 University of Lausanne GPS survey measured it at 1,718.06 m, below the newly named peak J1 (1,720.83 m).
Crete (Κρήτη)
Crete (Κρήτη), the largest Greek island and fifth largest in the Mediterranean, area 8,303–8,336 km², population 624,408 (2021), home of Minoan civilization, with Knossos, a tourism-dominated economy and a new 1,000 MW mainland power link.
Crevasse
Crevasse: a crack or series of cracks in a moving glacier's surface caused by differential flow stresses, also called glacier fissures. Forms where tensile stress exceeds 30–80 kPa; water-filled crevasses can penetrate to the bed via hydrofracture, driving calving and meltwater routing.
Crimea (Крим)
Crimea (Крим, Krym) is a Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 1783, transferred to Ukraine in 1954, and seized and annexed again by Russia in 2014, an act the UN declared invalid; its indigenous Crimean Tatars were deported in 1944.
Cro-Magnon rock shelter
Cro-Magnon rock shelter (abri de Cro-Magnon), Upper Paleolithic site at Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne, France; discovered 1868 during railway works; Aurignacian habitat and Early Gravettian burial of at least eight anatomically modern humans, source of the name Cro-Magnon.
Cronenwett Island
Cronenwett Island (Chinese: 克罗嫩韦特岛) is a high, ice-covered island about 40 km long in the Marshall Archipelago, Sulzberger Ice Shelf, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, at 77°S 150°W, between Vollmer and Steventon Islands, named for US Navy Commander W.R. Cronenwett.
Crown Colony of Seychelles
The Crown Colony of Seychelles was a British colony in the western Indian Ocean, created in 1903 after rule from Mauritius, lasting until independence in 1976.
Crown Prince Frederik Island
Crown Prince Frederik Island, an uninhabited 401 km2 island in Nunavut's Qikiqtaaluk Region, Gulf of Boothia, off western Baffin Island at 70°02′N 86°50′W; polar bear denning habitat, official Canadian name since 1951.
Crozet Islands
The Crozet Islands (Îles Crozet, Archipel Crozet) are five sub-Antarctic volcanic islands (340 km²) in the southern Indian Ocean, a TAAF district discovered in 1772 by Marion du Fresne, with the Alfred Faure base on Possession Island and UNESCO-listed seabird and marine-mammal sanctuaries.
Cruach nam Miseag
Cruach nam Miseag, a 607 m Graham, Marilyn, HuMP and Simm near Lochgoilhead in the Arrochar Alps, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, within Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park; added to the Grahams list in the 2022 metric revision.
Cruls Islands
Cruls Islands, also called Islotes Cruls, are a group of small islands in the Wilhelm Archipelago, Graham Coast, Antarctica, discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition 1897-1899 and named for astronomer Luis Cruls.
Cryoseism
Cryoseism (frost quake, ice quake): a non-tectonic seismic event caused by sudden cracking of frozen soil, rock, or ice, ranging from small surface frost quakes to large glacial earthquakes from iceberg calving in Greenland and Antarctica.
Cryosphere
The cryosphere (from Greek krios, cold) is Earth's frozen water: ice sheets, glaciers, snow, sea ice, and permafrost. It regulates climate via albedo, feeds 2 billion people's water, and is losing ice rapidly.
Crystal Mountain
Crystal Mountain, also called the Crystal Mountains, is a Precambrian highland range in Central Africa stretching from Cameroon to Angola, known for quartz crystals and rare plants.
Csehbánya Formation
Csehbánya Formation: Santonian Upper Cretaceous fluvial and floodplain unit in the Bakony Mountains, Hungary, exposed at the Iharkút open-pit, source of Hungary's first dinosaur fossils and over 40 vertebrate taxa including the freshwater mosasaur Pannoniasaurus.
Cuchilla Grande
Cuchilla Grande, principal hill ridge and drainage divide of southeast Uruguay, separating the Laguna Merín basin from Río Negro, Santa Lucía, and Plata headwaters; runs from Cerro Largo to Punta Gorda, Colonia.
Cuernos del Paine
Cuernos del Paine (Horns of Paine) are three granite peaks with dark Cerro Toro shale caps in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park; central Cuerno Principal is 2,110 m, carved from a ~12.5 Ma laccolith.
Cueva de la Olla
Cueva de la Olla (Cave of the Pot) is a pre-Columbian cliff dwelling in Cave Valley, Casas Grandes municipality, Chihuahua, Mexico, dated 1075–1150 AD, known for a 3.6 m tall adobe granary shaped like a giant olla.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands), Río Pinturas, Santa Cruz, Patagonia, Argentina: World Heritage rock art site with stencilled hands, guanacos, and hunting scenes painted between roughly 13,000 and 1,300 years ago; inscribed by UNESCO in 1999.