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.
52.724167°,5.644167° - Vantor
The village of Espel — located in the province of Flevoland, Netherlands — is home to 1,386 inhabitants. The farms in the region specialize in growing flower bulbs, mainly tulips. To the west of the village is Windpark Noordoostpolder, a partially on-shore, partially off-shore wind farm with more than 80 turbines.
-20.000000°,125.000000° - United States Geological Survey
The Great Sandy Desert is the second-largest desert in Australia, covering 110,036 square miles (284,993 square km) in the northwestern part of the continent. Despite its name, the western portion of the desert is almost devoid of sand, but is characterized by complex geology — as shown in this Overview. The Great Sandy Desert is sparsely populated by indigenous Australian communities and mining centers.
25.652920°,106.856580° - Vantor
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope is a radio telescope in the limestone hills of China’s Guizhou province. With a dish 1,600 feet (500 m) in diameter, it is the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope and the second-largest single-dish aperture, behind Russia’s RATAN-600.
47.920000°,-97.450000° - NASA
A patchwork of brown corn fields contrasts with snow-covered land in eastern North Dakota, USA. This image, captured by NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite on December 3rd, shows the city of Grand Forks in the upper-right corner. Snowfall is common this time of year in North Dakota, but full cornfields are not — normally all of the corn is harvested by now. Some news reports estimate that the amount of unharvested corn in the state is the highest it has been since 2009.
67.000000°,-78.000000° - United States Geological Survey
Large chunks of swirling ice are seen here in Foxe Basin, Nunavut, Canada. Located between Baffin Island and Melville Peninsula, the shallow oceanic basin is blocked by ice for most of the year (this image was captured in July). Foxe Basin supports a high density of bearded seals and the largest walrus herd in Canada. It is also an important summering area for bowhead and beluga whales and narwhal.
45.629583°,8.725802° - Vantor
This Overview shows Milan-Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy. The airport is the second-busiest in Italy by international passenger traffic, handling 24.7 million passengers in 2018. It is also the busiest Italian airport for freight and cargo, handling more than 500,000 tons of international freight annually.
19.435063°,-98.968517° - Vantor
Chimalhuacán is a city with more than 600,000 residents in the eastern part of the State of Mexico, Mexico. The colorful stretch of road seen across the bottom of this Overview is a open-air market known as a tianguis. Here, merchants cover their stalls with vibrant canopies to protect themselves from harsh sun and inclement weather.
-28.044500°,153.397611° - Nearmap
Clear Island Waters is a suburb on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Built around artificial canals, it is a residential community that is home to roughly 4,000 people. Clear Island Waters is just a few miles west of Mermaid Beach, one of many beaches along the Gold Coast's 43-mile coastline.
44.049985°,8.216569° - Vantor
Albenga is a city situated on the Gulf of Genoa in Italy. The economy of Albenga is primarily driven by tourism, local commerce, and agriculture. When viewing the town from above, it’s easy to see the amount of space dedicated to agriculture because of the widespread use of greenhouses or "plasticulture." The use of plastic covering is designed to increase produce yield, increase produce size, and shorten growth time.
21.571389°,25.132778° - United States Geological Survey
Jebel Kissu is a massif (a compact group of mountains) located in northwestern Sudan. It rises roughly 5,630 feet (1,716 m) above sea level, emerging abruptly like an island in the vast Sahara Desert. The bright linear features seen here are truck tracks — common in the Sahara where there are no paved roads.
27.722905°,-81.989787° - Vantor
The TECO Polk Power Station occupies 2,837 acres (1,148 hectares) in Bradley Junction, Polk County, Florida. This integrated coal gasification combined-cycle power plant produces roughly 1,400 megawatts of electricity — enough to serve 75,000 homes in the greater Tampa area. This Overview shows the facility surrounded by reclaimed water, which it cleans and uses in the process of generating electricity.
17.643056°,-63.226944° - Vantor
Zion’s Hill, also known by its former name Hell’s Gate, is a town on the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba. It is the first town one reaches after leaving Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, which has the shortest commercial runway in the world at 1,312 feet (400 m) long. With a land area of just 5 square miles (13 square km) and about 2,000 inhabitants, Saba is the smallest territory by permanent population in the Americas.
21.608056°,-87.983889° - Vantor
Huge sea salt evaporation ponds add color to the landscape of Las Coloradas, a community in Yucatán, Mexico. These ponds are part of an area that refines about 750,000 tons of sodium each year and produces six different types of table salt. The brilliant color of the water comes from salt-loving microorganisms, which serve as a source of food — and a source of pigment — for a thriving population of flamingos.
63.881121°,-22.450751° - Vantor
The Blue Lagoon is a man-made geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland, located near the fishing town of Grindavík. The water, which comes from the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power station, gets its milky blue shade from its high silica content. Just 12 miles (20 km) from Keflavík International Airport, the Blue Lagoon is a frequent pre- or post-flight pit stop for travelers and is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland.
53.900000°,27.566667° - Vantor
Minsk is the capital and largest city of Belarus, situated on the Svislač River. Home to just under 2 million people, it is a modern city characterized by monumental Stalinist architecture — grand buildings, broad avenues and wide squares. In recent years, Minsk has been continuously decentralizing and more development is planned for several areas outside the city centre.
-33.437000°,-70.634411° - Maria Gracia Subercaseaux
On Friday, more than a million people gathered at a peaceful protest in Santiago, Chile, calling for social reform. Originally sparked by an increase in metro fares, the movement has grown over the past several days to address broader issues of living costs and inequality. More than 20 people have been killed since the protests began, and today Chilean President Sebastián Piñera removed eight members of his cabinet in an attempt to quell protests.
3.045338°,101.585428° - Vantor
Subang Jaya is a municipality in the Greater Kuala Lumpur Petaling District of Malaysia. Before it was turned into a residential community in 1974, this area housed a rubber plantation for a major Malaysian conglomerate. It was granted municipal status in 1997 and has since grown rapidly into a global city and regional education hub.
43.387500°,4.804000° - Vantor
Vibrantly colored salt evaporation ponds are seen adjacent to Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône in southern France. This region — known as the Camargue — lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône River delta, forming a natural series of brine lagoons. Salt has been produced in this region for thousands of years and is sought-after worldwide for its superior quality.
46.882624°,-71.257800° - Nearmap
Bourg-Royal is one of 35 neighborhoods in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The suburb’s streets are arranged in a semi-circular pattern around a square center, leaving room for lawn space and — as is evident in this Overview — nearly every home to have a pool. Bourg-Royal is home to approximately 14,000 people.
46.080556°,7.403889° - Vantor
The Grande Dixence Dam in the canton of Valais in Switzerland is the tallest gravity dam in the world with a height of 935 feet (285 m). A gravity dam resists the horizontal thrust of the contained water, in this case the Dixence River, entirely by its own weight. The Grand Dixence took 14 years to construct, contains approximately six million cubic meters of concrete, and generates power for more than 400,000 Swiss homes.