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One regular dose of Earth from above
New Overviews are posted regularly on Instagram — follow @dailyoverview to see them as soon as they go up.
Optus Stadium
-31.951111°,115.889028° - Nearmap
Optus Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Perth, Western Australia, constructed between 2014 and 2018. Built on the site of a former golf course, the 60,000-seat stadium can accommodate various sporting and entertainment events including Australian rules football, cricket, rugby and soccer. It is the third-largest stadium in Australia.
Sittaung River
17.081290°,96.955754° - Google Timelapse
The Sittaung River shifts course over time as it empties into the Gulf of Martaban in southern Myanmar. This shifting is partially caused by a tidal bore at the mouth of the river — a strong current that pushes back against the river, temporarily reversing its flow. The Sittaung discharges an average of 12 cubic miles (50 cubic kilometers of water per year.
Erbil
36.191188°,44.009189° - Planet
Erbil is the capital and most populated city in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, with around 1.5 million inhabitants. At the city’s center is the Citadel of Erbil, a 102,000-square-meter (1.1 million-square-foot) mound believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world. Surrounding the Citadel are a series of concentric ring roads.
New Suez Canal
30.537447°,32.334090° - Maxar
The Suez Canal was expanded between 2014 and 2015, when a second channel was dredged near the city of Ismailia, Egypt. This channel, dubbed the “New Suez Canal,” spans 22 miles (35 kilometers) between the Great Bitter Lakes and El Ballah bypasses, allowing ships to transit the canal in both directions simultaneously. It nearly doubled the capacity of the Suez Canal, from 49 to 97 ships per day.
Santa Cruz Resettlement
-16.622791°,-62.910703° - Planet
Large tracts of rainforest in Santa Cruz, Bolivia have undergone major deforestation since the 1980’s to make way for resettlement and agricultural projects. The pinwheel-patterned fields seen here follow the San Javier resettlement scheme, with each pinwheel containing a central community that includes a church, bar/café, school, and soccer field. The light-colored areas of the formations are primarily fields of soybeans, and the dark lines running through the fields are “windbreaks” that prevent the erosion of the area’s unusually fine soil.
Monomoy Island Wildlife Refuge
41.627828°,-69.966681° - Planet
Sand stretches off the elbow of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, shifting over the years with the currents of the Atlantic Ocean. This particular area lies within the Monomoy Island National Wildlife Refuge, a migratory bird sanctuary with varied habitats including salt and freshwater marshes, sand dunes, and ponds.
Little Island
40.741966°,-74.010184° - Nearmap
Little Island is a public park in Manhattan, New York City that was constructed between 2018 and 2021. The 2.4-acre (9,712-square-meter) space is perched above the Hudson River on 132 concrete “tulip” pillars. It contains more than 350 species of plants, a 687-seat amphitheater, and ample lawn space for visitors.
Solar Panel Horse
40.295360°,109.670942° - Planet
The world’s largest solar panel image - a horse - was constructed in the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia, China starting in 2017. This massive pattern was built with 196,320 solar panels and covers nearly 1.4 square kilometers (0.54 square miles). It is part of a larger photovoltaic generation base with an annual output of 4 billion kilowatt hours.
Three Gorges Dam
30.823056°,111.003333° - Planet
Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze River in central China, was constructed between 1994 and 2012 to produce electricity and increase river shipping capacity. Since opening, it has been the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacit with 22,500 megawatts. Its construction also caused a massive relocation upstream — 1.24 million people were forced to move and 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1350 villages were at least partially flooded.
Athabasca Oil
57.020000°,-111.650000° - Planet
The Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada now cover roughly 100 square miles (258 square kilometers). The facility has expanded as its production of oil increased since the 1990s - an average of 3.1 million barrels were extracted each day in 2018, which is four times as much as in 2005. Athabasca contains Earth’s largest known deposit of bitumen, a semi-solid form of crude oil that occurs as a mixture of sand, clay, and water. The additional energy required to mine and then remove the sand from the bitumen releases more emissions than in any other form of oil production. The entire Athabasca area contains enough oil to produce 2.5 million barrels per day for the next 185 years.
Tulum
20.211944°,-87.465833° - Planet
Until the early 1990s, Tulum was a quiet village on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Known for its beaches and well-preserved Mayan ruins, the community has swelled in recent years to accommodate a rapid increase in tourism. It’s population grew from 3,000 in 1995 to over 46,000 in 2020, and its infrastructure now includes hotels, restaurants and bars, boutiques, and gyms.
Istanbul Airport
41.262222°,28.727778° - Maxar
Construction of Istanbul Airport began in 2014 and took four years to complete. Most of its 19,000-acre (7,600-hectare) footprint was previously state-owned forest and some 658,000 trees were cleared to make way for its construction. The facility has an annual passenger capacity of 90 million people.
Senegal Salt Ponds
14.055530°,-16.764616° - Tom Hegen
Man-made salt ponds dot the Saloum River Delta in Senegal, West Africa. Solar evaporation turns the water into a salty brine and, due to variable algal concentrations, creates vivid colors ranging from pale green to bright orange. In summer months, the brines turn dense enough to crystallize and salt crystals sink to the bottom, where they can be scooped out.
Tenth of Ramadan
30.306503°,31.741455° - Planet
10th of Ramadan is a master-planned community in Greater Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 1977 and developed heavily over the last few decades, the city is now home to about half a million people. More than $2.5 Million USD (47 million Egyptian pounds) has been spent to develop agriculture that surrounds the city and supports its growing population.
Mozambique Coastline
-21.181823°,35.108976° - NASA / Google Timelapse
Mozambique's southern coastline has shifted over the years, affected by cyclones, flooding, and erosion. This section of shore, located just south of where the Save River empties into the Indian Ocean, is also shaped as sediment is discharged from the river.
Lake Urmia, Iran
37.700000°,45.366667° - Planet
Lake Urmia was once the sixth-largest saltwater lake on the planet with a surface area of 2,000 square miles (5,200 square km), but by 2017 had shrunk to 10% of its original size due to drought and damming of inflow rivers. Located in northwestern Iran, water levels rose once again in 2019 and continued in 2020 due to above average precipitation and the efforts of a restoration program.
Lop Nur Potash Ponds
40.417972°,90.795250° - Planet
The Lop Nur Potash Ponds are located in the Taklamakan Desert of northern China. Built and expanded over the last 20 years, the ponds occupy the basin of a dried up salt lake that once spanned 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles) and left behind salt crusts as thick as 100 centimeters (39 inches). The variety of color seen here illustrates the stages of production—water is first dyed blue to absorb more sunlight and heat, and it gradually fades in color as it evaporates and potash crystallizes, ready for extraction.
Guangzhou
23.130000°,113.260000° - NASA
Guangzhou is one of China’s fastest growing cities, it’s population tripling from 5 million in 1980 to 18.6 million in 2020. The city has seen a huge influx of migrants in recent years, spurred by its fast-growing economy and high labor demands. Guangzhou is at the heart of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, the most-populous built-up metropolitan area in the world with approximately 65.5 million residents.
Jökulsarlón
64.075167°,-16.243444° - Maxar
Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland has retreated rapidly in recent years. As the ice has melted, a lagoon known as Jökulsarlón has formed and grown. This area is now a popular tourist attraction, with large chunks of glacial ice melting before entering the Atlantic Ocean. Sixty years ago, when the glacier reached all the way to the shore, Jökulsárlón did not exist and since the 1970’s it has more than quadrupled in size.
Bone Valley
27.750790°,-81.864120° - NASA / Google Timelapse
The Bone Valley in central Florida contains some of the largest known deposits of phosphate in the United States. Mining has taken place here since the late 1800s, but in recent decades has expanded to cover more than 450,000 acres (182,000 hectares). Phosphate is used to create fertilizers and animal feed supplements, while phosphoric acid is an ingredient in food and beverage products, as well as metal treatment compounds.
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