Spending time looking at the varying and beautiful images of our planet from above in Google Earth, zooming in and out at dizzying rates, I thought it would be interesting to compare all of these vistas at a fixed scale—to see what New York City, Venice, or the Grand Canyon would look like from the same virtual height. So, the following images are snapshots from Google Earth, all rectangles of the same size and scale, approximately three and a half miles (5.6 kilometers) wide by two miles (3.2 kilometers) tall—showing seven square miles (18.1 square kilometers, or 4,480 acres) of the surface of our planet in each view.
(Clockwise, from upper left) Seven-square-mile views of Manhattan; Chaganbulage Administrative Village in Inner Mongolia; Venice, Italy; and farms in Plymouth, Washington#
Seven square miles of Manhattan, including Central Park, the Upper West Side, and parts of the Upper East Side, Midtown, and the Hudson River (at top)#
A seven-square-mile view of mountains and rock formations near the town of Torotoro in the Charcas province of Bolivia. Note the twisting road carved through a pass at far left. See it mapped.#
Seven square miles of Washington, D.C., from the Lincoln Memorial near the Potomac River (center left) to the United States Capitol (center right), and surrounding neighborhoods#
A seven-square-mile section of Peru's arid Vitor district, where small rounded dunes are pushed in clusters by prevailing winds toward a road (right).#
Valentine’s Day among humans and animals, family reunions at an Indian border fence, an icy dinosaur in Latvia, snow kayaking in Estonia, International Condom Day in Mexico City, and much more
A half century ago, humans first set foot on the moon, hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in New York’s Catskill Mountains for a music festival that became a cultural milestone, and so much more.
