Category Social Sciences

Why is Canada known as the country with the longest coastline?

With a coastline that stretches for 2,02,080 kilometres along the Pacific Ocean in the west, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and the Arctic Ocean in the north, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. Due to its extensive coastline that borders different oceans, Canada’s landscape along the shoreline varies significantly at different locations.

Canada shares its southern and western border with the United States for over 8,891 kilometres. It has the world’s longest binational land border. Canada’s capital is Ottawa; it also has three other large metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Canada has some of the most pristine landscapes in the world and about 80 per cent of this beautiful country is uninhabited. Animals such as the moose, polar bears, and wood bison are found here in large numbers. It also has many important ports for trading and provide access to some of the best fishing areas in the world. The vast coastline of the country is a central component in Canada’s economy.

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Why is the title of the longest river a matter of controversy?

There is a centuries old dispute about which river is the longest. The contestants for this title are the Amazon River and the Nile River, and they both have strong claims on their sides. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Nile is officially the longest river. Its main source is Lake Victoria in east central Africa and it flows over 6600 kilometres to merge into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River is a source of water for the following eleven countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.

Until 1971, the true source of the Amazon River was not discovered. In the same year, Loren McIntyre, an American photojournalist who worked extensively in South America, claimed that this river originated in the snow-covered Andes of southern Peru. This makes the Amazon River’s length 6700 kilometres when it flows into the South Atlantic Ocean through the Par estuary (which is its most distant mouth). But here again, the calculations are not that simple as the Amazon has several mouths, making it extremely difficult to ascertain the exact point where the river ends.

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Which is the longest bridge in the world?

The Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge in China is the world’s longest bridge with a length of 165 kilometres. It is a part of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway and has played a crucial role in reducing the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai.

It is a girder bridge, a common form of bridge construction that is found all over the world. The bridge only took about four years to materialize as girders generally increase the speed of construction.

Due to its extraordinary length, the bridge is spread across different geographical terrains and building it required remarkable engineering knowledge. It was designed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, which is a section of the China Communications Construction Company. This project was completed on time and was fully built by the November of 2010.

It was officially opened for the public the next year, in June.

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Which is the longest constructed waterway?

The longest waterway that has ever been constructed is located in China, and connects Hang-zhou in Zhejiang province with Beijing. The Grand Canal, also called Jing-Hang Yunhe, is not a single waterway but a series of waterways with length of around 1776 km. Successive Chinese regimes used this waterway to transport surplus grains from the agriculturally rich Yangtze (Chang) and Huai river valleys to feed the capital cities and the large armies in northern China. This structure is now considered as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The part of the canal that was originally on the Huang He (Yellow River) is the oldest part of this waterway. It was traditionally known as the Shanyang Canal but it is now called the Southern Grand Canal (Nan Yunhe) and is located between the Yangtze and the city of Huaiyin (formerly called Qingjiang) in Jiangsu province. It reaches its maximum height of 42 metres in the mountains of Shan-dong.

This system of canals has led to faster trading between different provinces and has supported China’s economy. The part of the canal in the south of the Yellow River continues to be extensively used by barges carrying bulk materials and containers.

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What was Louisa May Alcott best known for? How Little Women became big?

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a semi-autobiographical American coming-of-age story about four sisters. A critique of the unrealistic perception of blissful female domesticity, this novel has never once been out of print since it was first published in 1868, and has even been adapted for the big screen seven times to date. Let’s revisit the classic and look at what makes it relevant even today.

About the author

Louisa May Alcott was the second of four daughters born to Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May on November 29, 1839. Her father was an autodidact, which means he taught himself how to read and write. He eventually became a progressive educator and founded the temple school, where he introduced subjects such as art music nature studies, and physical education into the curriculum, in the hope of providing holistic education to the students. However, the school was shut down as most parents at the time were neither familiar nor happy with these subjects. Bronson Alcott’s unconventional teaching methods were the reasons why he could never establish a steady source of income and brought his family to the verge of poverty.

Growing up, Louisa’s way of thinking was not only shaped by her father’s teaching but also by close interactions with his friends, American authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whom the family befriended upon moving to Concord.

Distressed by her family’s financial status, 15-year-old Louisa wrote in her diary “I will do something by and by. Don’t care what, teach, sew, act, write anything to help the family and I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t. And she was able to fulfil this, thanks to the massive success of her semi-autobiographical novel Little Women, which was initially published in two parts Little Women (1868) and The Good Wives (1869).

Fortunate accidents

Louisa May Alcott never wanted to write Little Women, as it went against all of her impulses to be taken seriously as a writer and an equal to her male contemporaries but ended up penning the iconic story as a consequence of a series of fortunate accidents.

She was 36 years old and had already published a few books under the pen name A.M. Barnard when her publisher Thomas Niles insisted that her next novel should be about the domestic sphere and cater to young women. Enticing her further, Niles suggested that he would willingly Mr Alcott’s philosophy book too if Louisa agreed to this.

Just for the sake of her father, she agreed and wrote what would become her most celebrated book in a 10-week flurry, drawing from her own childhood experiences.

Little Women

The novel chronicles the lives of the Four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy as they grow up during the American Civil War, wrestling with the limitations placed on women in the 19th Century. It critiques how women are forced to make cruelly imposed compromises between self-fulfilment and economic and social necessity.

What makes it a classic?

The blueprint of a family

This work of children’s fiction has a didactic tone that sets it apart from most of the literature that appeared before it. Louisa’s realistic characters and sentimental themes explore how social reform must start at home. Little Women functions as a blueprint of what it takes to have a healthy relationship with your family. Although the story is set in the tumultuous background of the civil war and the scarlet fever outbreak, the connection that the flawed and vulnerable March sisters have and share with the people that surround them is what makes them more life-like, relatable, and relevant. The book celebrates their diverse takes on difficult situations, individual struggles with poverty, and different aspirations in life, highlighting how no two individuals can be the same even if they are raised under the same roof with the same resources.

The matriarch

Through the strong and self-reliant character of Marmee, the author challenges the prevailing assumptions of 19th Century society that saw women as domestic goddesses that were best kept indoors tending to every need of the family.

Marmee is a source of awe and inspiration to her children, who have witnessed her single-handedly manage the household and make a living while their father is away at war. Her unconventional way of thinking, which suggests self-respect, peace, and true love must hold more importance than money and even marriage, motivates her daughters to dream big and accomplish more in their lives.

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Why is the Ganges delta unique?

Known as the Sundarbans Delta or the Bengal Delta, the delta of the river Ganges is the world’s largest river delta. By definition, deltas are wetlands that are formed by the rivers as they empty their water and sediments into oceans, lakes, or other water bodies. The Sundarbans Delta encompasses more than 105,000 square kilometres and covers West Bengal and Bangladesh. This delta is formed when the combined waters of several river systems that include the Brahmaputra and the Ganges rivers, empty into the Bay of Bengal. Because of its rich soil, it is also one of the most fertile regions in the world, and is called the Green Delta. It begins at the Meghna River and stretches till the Hooghly River.

The biodiversity of the Ganges delta is also very vast. It is covered with deciduous forests and mangroves and is home to the famous Bengal Tiger. Sundarbans, which forms a major part of this delta, is the world’s largest mangrove forest and has a wide variety of wildlife such as the Indian python, elephants, and crocodiles. One can also find exotic birds like kingfishers, eagles, and woodpeckers here. It is also one of the world’s most populated regions, with approximately 130 million inhabitants.

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