3,546 articles
Samar
Samar: third-largest island of the Philippines (1,355,935 ha) in Eastern Visayas, divided into Samar, Eastern Samar, and Northern Samar provinces; home to Samar Island Natural Park, karst forests, and Rafflesia manillana.
Sambisa Forest
Sambisa Forest, a forest in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, about 60 km southeast of Maiduguri; a former game reserve (gazetted 1958) that became Boko Haram's main stronghold, with area figures ranging from 518 km² to a broader 60,000 km².
Sammisoq
Sammisoq, also spelled Sangmissoq and known as Christian IV Island, is the largest island of the Cape Farewell Archipelago in southern Greenland. It is uninhabited and rises to 306 meters.
Samoa Islands
Samoa Islands: volcanic archipelago in the central South Pacific, split between independent Samoa and the US territory of American Samoa; Samoa Islands marine ecoregion of Central Polynesia, fringing coral reefs, ocean management under the Samoa Ocean Strategy.
Samoan Islands
The Samoan Islands, also called the Samoan archipelago, are a 485-km volcanic chain in Polynesia split at 171°W by the 1899 Tripartite Convention into independent Samoa and the U.S. territory of American Samoa.
Samos (Σάμος)
Samos (Σάμος), Greek island in the eastern Aegean nearest Turkey; home of ancient Samos city (Pythagoreion), the Heraion of Hera, and Eupalinos' tunnel; UNESCO site since 1992; struck by Mw 7.0 quake in 2020.
San Andrés (island)
San Andrés, Colombian coral island in the western Caribbean, largest island of the San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina department; free port since 1953, Raizal Creole-speaking people, Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, over 1.1 million tourists in 2025.
San Bernardino Mountains
The San Bernardino Mountains are a Transverse Ranges range in San Bernardino County, California, rising above 3,000 m, uplifted in the early Quaternary along low-angle faults, and covered largely by the 820,000-acre San Bernardino National Forest.
San Clemente Island
San Clemente Island: southernmost of California's Channel Islands, about 64 miles west of San Diego, Navy-owned since 1934 and its primary Pacific Fleet SEAL training area, with 17 endemic protected plants and a 2023 five-species delisting.
San Cristóbal Island (3651946)
San Cristóbal Island (Isla San Cristóbal), easternmost of Ecuador's Galápagos, 557 km², capital Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Darwin's 1835 landing site, El Junco fresh-water lake, Kicker Rock, second largest population.
San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley: sediment-filled basin northwest of downtown Los Angeles, home to about 1.8 million people; Tongva homeland, Mission San Fernando (1797), 1913 aqueduct, 2002 failed secession.
San Francisco Peninsula
The San Francisco Peninsula, known locally as the Peninsula, separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean, extending from the Santa Clara Valley to the Golden Gate.
San Gabriel Mountains
The San Gabriel Mountains are an east-west Transverse Range forming the northern edge of the Los Angeles Basin, home to 10,064-foot Mount San Antonio, Angeles National Forest, and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
San Gabriel Valley
The San Gabriel Valley is a region of eastern Los Angeles County, California, lying south of the San Gabriel Mountains and home to about 2 million people.
San Gorgonio Mountain
San Gorgonio Mountain (Old Grayback), 11,503 ft, is the highest peak in Southern California and the Transverse Ranges, in the 37,980-acre San Gorgonio Wilderness of the San Bernardino Mountains.
San Jacinto Mountains
The San Jacinto Mountains are a Peninsular Ranges range in Riverside County, California, home to 10,834-foot San Jacinto Peak, Mount San Jacinto State Park, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, Idyllwild, and the seismically active San Jacinto fault zone.
San Jacinto Peak
San Jacinto Peak, 10,834 ft, highest summit of the San Jacinto Mountains, California; ultra-prominent peak (8,299 ft prominence, No. 6 in contiguous US) in Mount San Jacinto State Park, reached via the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.
San Joaquin Valley
San Joaquin Valley: southern two-thirds of California's Central Valley, a major agricultural region (7% of US farm output) known for severe groundwater-driven land subsidence, SGMA management, and drinking water contamination.
San Juan Islands
The San Juan Islands are an archipelago of about 473 islands in Washington's Salish Sea, home to Coast Salish peoples for millennia, site of the 1859 Pig War, and settled by U.S. arbitration in 1872.
San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island (Tongva: Haraasnga) is the most remote of California's eight Channel Islands, Navy-owned and closed to the public. Home of the Nicoleño people and the Lone Woman who inspired Island of the Blue Dolphins.
San Pedro Arroyo Formation
San Pedro Arroyo Formation: Upper Triassic (late Carnian, Adamanian) mudstone unit of the Chinle Group in central and southern New Mexico, named by Lucas in 1991; up to 123 m thick, with Araya Well, Ojo Huelos, and Cañon Agua Buena members and a lacustrine limestone marker bed.
San Pedro-Pellado
San Pedro-Pellado (also San Pedro-Tatara) is a Chilean volcanic complex in the Southern Andean Volcanic Arc, built inside the 6 x 12 km Río Colorado caldera; Pellado, Tatara, and 3,621-m San Pedro stratovolcano, no historical eruptions, fumaroles SE of Pellado.
San Rafael Swell
The San Rafael Swell is a 75-mile-long anticline of eroded sandstone in central Utah; about 217,000 acres are the BLM-managed San Rafael Swell Recreation Area, formed during the Laramide orogeny and known for the San Rafael Reef, slot canyons, and the Wedge Overlook.
San Salvador Island
San Salvador Island (Guanahani), Bahamas: traditionally Columbus's 1492 first landfall, formerly Watling Island until 1926; noted for blue holes, inland lakes, national parks, and the Gerace Research Centre.
San Vicente
San Vicente (Chichontepec) is El Salvador's large twin-peaked stratovolcano, ~50 km east of San Salvador, ~130 km3, no historical eruptions but recurrent deadly lahars, including the 2009 Verapaz disaster.
Sand area
Sand area: a region where wind-blown sand accumulates, from sand patches to dune fields and sand seas (ergs). Forms where sediment supply, strong winds, and sparse vegetation coincide; over 5,000,000 km2 of dune sand, 99% desert.
Sand flat
Sand flat: an unvegetated intertidal tidal flat of sand, exposed at low tide, where wave and tidal energy winnow fine silt; found at estuary entrances and inlets, with Bathyporeia-dominated fauna and wave-energy dissipating function.
Sandy desert
Sandy desert (erg, sand sea): a desert of wind-blown sand dunes and sand sheets, called nafud, edeyen, or kum regionally; covers only about a quarter of the world's deserts, the rest being rocky.
Sandy Hook
Sandy Hook is a 10-km barrier spit in Monmouth County, New Jersey, a unit of Gateway National Recreation Area. Home of the 1764 Sandy Hook Lighthouse, the oldest surviving in the United States, and Fort Hancock, it is distinct from Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
Sandy Island, New Caledonia
Sandy Island (Sable Island) was a phantom island charted in the Coral Sea northwest of New Caledonia from an 1876 whaling ship sighting until Australian scientists undiscovered it in 2012, finding 1,300-meter-deep ocean.