2,436 articles
Uummannaq fjord system bays and inlets
The Uummannaq fjord system bays and inlets, officially Uummannaq Fjord, are the arms of a large fjord complex in Greenland draining the ice sheet into Baffin Bay.
Uvs Nuur Basin
Uvs (Uvs Nuur Basin, Ubsunur Hollow) is a transboundary Central Asian lake basin on the Mongolia–Russia (Tuva) border around saline Lake Uvs Nuur; UNESCO World Heritage site since 2003, 12 components, 898,064 ha, snow leopard and argali habitat.
Vaal
Vaal (Lekoa): main tributary of South Africa's Orange River, about 1,300 km long, draining the central highveld; supplies Gauteng via the Vaal Dam, Barrage, and Lesotho Highlands transfers.
Vahsel Bay
Vahsel Bay (Vahselbucht), a bay about 7 miles wide on the Luitpold Coast, Coats Land, Antarctica, at the east end of the Filchner Ice Shelf; discovered 1912 by Filchner's German expedition and named for Captain Richard Vahsel.
Vakh
Vakh (Вах) is a 964 km river in Khanty-Mansia, western Siberia, a right tributary of the Ob with a 76,700 km² basin, mean discharge 665 m³/s, navigable 453 km, and the Samotlor oil field in its basin.
Valdivian Lakes
The Valdivian Lakes, ecoregion 349 in the Freshwater Ecoregions of the World scheme, is a southern Chilean freshwater ecoregion spanning the lake district from Lago Villarrica to Lago Llanquihue.
Valencia Basin
Valencia Basin (Valencia Trough), western Mediterranean basin between Iberia and the Balearic Islands; late Oligocene-Neogene aborted rift with crust thinned to about 9 km, formed by slab roll-back.
Valley of Geysers (Долина гейзеров)
The Valley of Geysers (Dolina Geizerov) is a geyser field in the Kronotsky State Nature Reserve on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, discovered in 1941 by geologist Tatiana Ustinova.
Vänern
Vänern is Sweden's largest lake and Europe's third largest, about 5,450–5,650 km², 153 km³, mean depth 27 m, draining via Göta älv; regulated since 1937, with landlocked Gullspång salmon and a large freshwater archipelago.
Vardar
Vardar (Вардар; Greek Axios, Αξιός), major Balkan river, 388 km, rising near Vrutok, North Macedonia, flowing to the Aegean Thermaikos Gulf; second largest Balkan catchment after the Evros.
Várzea forest
Várzea forest, Amazonian whitewater floodplain forest (contrasted with igapó), flooded by nutrient-rich Andean sediment rivers; covers 60,000–100,000 km², floods up to 230 days yearly, hosts about one sixth of Amazonian tree diversity.
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama (c. 1460s–1524), Portuguese navigator born in Sines, commanded the first European fleet to reach India by sea around Africa (1497–1499), landing at Calicut in 1498; later Admiral of the Indian seas under Manuel I.
Vasyugan
The Vasyugan (Васюган) is a 1,082 km river in Tomsk Oblast, Russia, and a left tributary of the Ob, rising in the Vasyugan bogs of the West Siberian Plain.
Vättern
Vättern is Sweden's second largest lake, a long, deep, clear-water lake in a fault trough in the south central part of the country that supplies drinking water to about 300,000 people.
Vegas - Virgin
Vegas - Virgin, FEOW freshwater ecoregion 129, a desert ecoregion of southeastern Nevada, northwestern Arizona, and southwestern Utah covering the Virgin, White, and Moapa river basins, with endemic spinedaces, springfish, and the Virgin chub.
Vejlerne and Løgstør Bredning
Vejlerne and Løgstør Bredning: adjoining Limfjord wetlands in northern Jutland, Denmark; a 60 km² former land-reclamation area turned northern Europe's largest bird reserve, plus a 250 km² shallow fjord, jointly a 1977 Ramsar site.
Vema Fracture Zone
Vema Fracture Zone: major west-east central Atlantic fracture zone at ~10°50′N, intraplate trace of the Vema Transform offsetting the Mid-Atlantic Ridge ~320 km left-laterally, with a >5,100 m deep sedimented valley, median ridge, and 300-km transverse ridge.
Venetian Lagoon
Venetian Lagoon (Laguna di Venezia), shallow 550 km² Mediterranean tidal lagoon in northeast Italy, connected to the Adriatic by the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia inlets; UNESCO-listed with Venice in 1987, eroding salt marshes, MoSE flood barriers.
Verkhniy Yenisey
Verkhniy Yenisey (Ulug-Khem, Upper Yenisey) is the upper course of the Yenisei River in Tuva, Russia, from the Maly and Bolshoy Yenisey confluence at Kyzyl; 188 km to the Khemchik mouth, 1,238 km to the Tuba under the wider definition.
Vernal pool
Vernal pool: a small seasonal wetland that ponds in winter and spring and dries in summer, held by bedrock or hard clay; fish-free breeding habitat for fairy shrimp and amphibians, with over 90% of California's pools lost.
Vestfjorden
Vestfjorden, a broad open bay in Nordland, Norway, between Lofoten and the mainland; skrei cod spawning ground, site of the Lofoten fishery, ~180 km long, sill 227 m.
Vetluga
Vetluga (Ветлуга, Mari: Ener): an 889 km left tributary of the Volga flowing through Kirov, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod oblasts and Mari El, and a 1778-chartered district town of 9,400 people (2005) on its right bank.
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls, or Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the Smoke That Thunders"), is the Zambezi River waterfall on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, the world's largest curtain of falling water at 1,708 m wide and up to 108 m deep, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1989.
Victoria Harbour (维多利亚港)
Victoria Harbour (维多利亚港) is the sheltered deep-water harbour between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Key facts: 180 years of reclamation creating 7,051 hectares, 1997 Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, 2004 court test, world-busiest port in 1994.
Vilkitsky Strait
Vilkitsky Strait (пролив Вилькицкого), Arctic strait between Cape Chelyuskin and Bolshevik Island connecting the Kara and Laptev Seas; the northernmost, most difficult chokepoint of the Northern Sea Route, requiring icebreaker escort.
Vilyuy
Vilyuy (Вилюй) is a 2,650 km Siberian river, the largest left tributary of the Lena in Yakutia, with a 454,000 km² permafrost basin, a dam at Chernyshevsky, and diamond-mining region around Mirny; distinct from a small Neyva tributary of the same name.
Vincennes Bay
Vincennes Bay is an ice-filled bay on Budd Coast, Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, named for the USS Vincennes of the 1840 Wilkes expedition. Its Vanderford Glacier drains part of the Aurora Subglacial Basin, holds about 0.67 m of sea level rise, and receives warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions.
Vindelälven
Vindelälven (Vindel River), a 450 km unregulated national river in northern Sweden, free of hydropower dams, a Ramsar site (no. 2181, 66,395 ha, 2013), and core of the UNESCO Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka biosphere reserve (2019).
Vĩnh Tế Canal
The Vĩnh Tế Canal (Kênh Vĩnh Tế) is an 87 km canal in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, dug under the Nguyễn dynasty between 1819 and 1824.
Violante Inlet
Violante Inlet is an ice-filled inlet, 16 nmi long and 12–15 nmi wide, between Cape Fanning and Cape Herdman on the Black Coast of Palmer Land, Antarctica; discovered by USAS in 1940 and named for Andre L. Violante.