3,546 articles
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Bainbridge Island, Washington: an island city in Kitsap County in Puget Sound, 35 minutes from Seattle by ferry. Also City of Winslow (incorporated 1947); 24,825 residents (2020), 27.61 sq mi, Suquamish ancestral land, high-income Seattle suburb.
Baintha Brakk
Baintha Brakk, the Ogre, is a 7,285 m granite peak in Pakistan's Karakoram. First climbed 1977 by Scott and Bonington, summited only three times, with a 24-year gap between the first two ascents.
Bairiga
Bairiga, also Ruoni (若尼) or Kangri Garpo I, is the 6,882 m highest peak of the Kangri Garpo Range in southeast Tibet, China, with 2,444 m prominence and no recorded ascent.
Baja California Peninsula
Baja California Peninsula, northwestern Mexico, states of Baja California and Baja California Sur; arid peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of California, detached by the San Andreas fault system, a plant-endemism hotspot with over 4,000 plant species.
Bajo Nuevo Bank
Bajo Nuevo Bank (Petrel Islands, New Bank) is an uninhabited Caribbean coral bank, 9 by 26 km, with three cays including Low Cay. The ICJ awarded it to Colombia in 2012; the US claims it under the Guano Act of 1856.
Bakening
Bakening (Бакенинг), also known as Kamchatka Peak, is an andesitic stratovolcano rising to 2,278 m on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, about 100 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Baker Island
Baker Island: uninhabited U.S. coral island just north of the equator, 1,830 nmi southwest of Honolulu; guano-mined 1859-1878, colonized 1935-1942, now a National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
Balamcanche
Balamcanche (Balankanché, Balamkanché) is a Maya ceremonial cave near Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, rediscovered in 1959 behind a sealed masonry wall, with a Sacred Ceiba column and hundreds of ritual offerings to the rain god Chaac.
Bald Head
Bald Head is a bare, ice-free headland 8 miles southwest of View Point on the south side of Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica, at 63°38'S 57°36'W; charted and named by the FIDS in 1945.
Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands (Illes Balears): Spanish Mediterranean archipelago and autonomous community about 150 km east of Iberia; Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera; Betic geology, endemic fauna, Roman-to-Aragonese history, heavy tourism pressure.
Balkan Mountains (Стара планина)
Balkan Mountains (Стара планина, Stara Planina, "Old Mountain"), also called Haemus in antiquity: a 530 km west-east range across Bulgaria to Cape Emine, highest peak Botev 2,376 m, home of Central Balkan National Park.
Ball's Pyramid
Ball's Pyramid (Balls Pyramid) is a volcanic sea stack 23 km southeast of Lord Howe Island, Australia, part of the 1982 World Heritage Lord Howe Island Group and the only wild refuge of the critically endangered Lord Howe Island phasmid, rediscovered there in 2001.
Balleny Islands
Balleny Islands, Antarctic island chain in the northern Ross Sea, ~250 km north of Victoria Land; discovered 9 February 1839 by Captain John Balleny of the Eliza Scott; glaciated volcanic islands (Sturge, Buckle, Young) with 2001 eruption and Sabrina Island ASPA 104.
Baluchistan
Baluchistan, or Balochistan, is a dry plateau in southwestern Asia covering parts of Iran and Pakistan, bounded by the Arabian Sea and the Sulaiman Mountains.
Bambouk
Bambouk is a gold-producing region of western Mali and eastern Senegal, between the Bafing and Falémé rivers, and a chief source of West African gold from the tenth century onward.
Bambuk
Bambuk, also spelled Bambuhu and called Bambouk by the French, is a gold-producing region of West Africa between the Senegal and Falémé rivers, a chief source of medieval trans-Saharan gold.
Bamus
Bamus (South Son) is a dormant 2,248 m andesitic stratovolcano on New Britain, Papua New Guinea, southwest of Ulawun (the Father); last erupted about 1886, with 1990 seismic unrest and 2006 vapor emissions.
Banaba
Banaba, also known as Ocean Island, is a raised coral island just south of the equator, now part of Kiribati and its highest point, strip-mined for phosphate until its people were displaced to Fiji.
Banahaw
Banahaw (Banahao) is an active 2,158-m complex stratovolcano on the Laguna-Quezon border, Luzon, Philippines, with uncertain eruptions in 1730-1909, large Holocene debris avalanches, and the Mts. Banahaw-San Cristobal Protected Landscape.
Bangka Island
Pulau Bangka (Bangka Island), Indonesian island east of Sumatra in Kepulauan Bangka Belitung province; name from Sanskrit Wangka, tin. 11,528 km2, four regencies plus Pangkalpinang, Dutch tin mining from 1851, Billiton Maatschappij 1860.
Banks Island (банкс)
Banks Island (банкс) is the fourth largest and westernmost Canadian Arctic Island, in the Northwest Territories, area about 70,000 km2. Home to Aulavik National Park, huge lesser snow goose colonies, over half the world's muskoxen, and the sole settlement Sachs Harbour.
Banks Peninsula
Banks Peninsula (Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū) is a 1,165 sq km volcanic peninsula near Christchurch, New Zealand, formed by the extinct Lyttelton and Akaroa shield volcanoes, named by Cook in 1770, and site of the 1840 French settlement at Akaroa.
Banua Wuhu
Banua Wuhu (Gunung Banua Wuhu) is a submarine volcano in the Sangihe Islands, Indonesia, near Mahengetang Island, summit 5 m below sea level. Erupted 1835-1919, building ephemeral islands; hydrothermal venting; studied as a tsunami source.
Bar Island
Bar Island: name of several small islands, chiefly the tidal island in Acadia National Park, Maine, joined to Bar Harbor by a sand bar walkable 1.5 hours around low tide; also islands in NSW, Canada, and the Marshall Islands.
Barabar Caves
Barabar Caves (बराबर), with the nearby Nagarjuni Caves, are India's oldest surviving rock-cut caves, Mauryan period, Bihar, dedicated by Ashoka and Dasharatha to Ajivika monks, famed for mirror-like Mauryan polish.
Baranof Island
Baranof Island (Tlingit Shee), a 4,065 km2 mountainous island in Alaska's Alexander Archipelago; site of Sitka, former Russian-American capital, heavy glaciation, and Tlingit-Russian conflict of 1802 and 1804.
Barbados
Barbados, easternmost Lesser Antilles island nation, capital Bridgetown, area 431 km2. British colony from 1627, independent 30 November 1966 under Errol Barrow, republic since 2021; tourism-driven economy, CARICOM member since 1973.
Barbados Ridge
Barbados Ridge: the accretionary prism east of the Lesser Antilles arc, built by Atlantic (North American) plate subduction beneath the Caribbean Plate at ~20 mm/yr; up to 280–300 km wide, 20 km thick, exposed only on Barbados island.
Barbeau Peak
Barbeau Peak, 2,616 m, on Ellesmere Island in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Nunavut; highest mountain in Nunavut and the Canadian Arctic, in the British Empire Range, first climbed in 1967.
Barbuda
Barbuda: flat Caribbean island 25 miles north of Antigua, part of Antigua and Barbuda; 62 square miles, about 1,300 people. Codrington lease 1684–1870, communal land tenure, 2017 Hurricane Irma evacuation, Codrington Lagoon frigatebird sanctuary.