Daily Overview

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.

Besni District

37.532097°,37.943359° - Vantor

Farmland creates a vibrant pattern against the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Besni District, southeastern Türkiye. This region contains human settlements that date back thousands of years and is not far from the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture first emerged. Crops grown here include pistachios, pomegranates, almonds, walnuts, olives, apples and mulberries.

Acapulco

16.863611°,-99.882500° - Vantor

Acapulco, a resort city on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, was struck overnight by Hurricane Otis as a Category 5 storm with 165-mph (265-kmh) winds. Otis caught many by surprise, rapidly intensifying by more than 110 mph (177 kmh) in just 24 hours. Acapulco, a city of more than 852,000, had all power and internet service knocked out, effectively cutting it from outside communication.

Taal Volcano

14.010000°,120.997500° - Vantor

Taal is an active stratovolcano located on the southwestern end of Luzon Island, Philippines. It has a crater lake at its center, and the entire 8.9-square-mile (23 sq. km) volcanic island lies within a larger caldera, also known as Taal Lake. Even its crater lake contains a small island, Vulcan Point, which is one of few "islands in a lake on an island in a lake on an island" in the world.

Dalma Island

24.516667°,52.316667° - Vantor

Dalma Island, part of the UAE, is located in the Persian Gulf approximately 26 miles (42 km) off the coast of Abu Dhabi. It has a population of about 10,000, most of whom are fishermen or farmers. With multiple freshwater wells, Dalma is able to support extensive vegetable fields and fruit orchards.

Limassol Salt Lake

34.612819°,32.964386° - Google Timelapse

Limassol Salt Lake is the largest inland body of water on the island of Cyprus, covering 4.11 square miles (10.65 sq km). Since its deepest point is only about three feet (one meter), it frequent dries and refills, causing its appearance to vary from the Overview perspective. It is considered one of the eastern Mediterranean region’s most important wetlands, providing a seasonal habitat for thousands of greater flamingos.

Munich Airport

48.353889°,11.786111° - Vantor

Munich Airport, also called Munich Franz Josef Strauss Airport, is an international airport serving Munich and Upper Bavaria, Germany. In 2019, it was the second-busiest passenger airport in Germany and the ninth-busiest in Europe, handling 47.9 million travelers. The airport is located northeast of Munich near the town of Freising, surrounded by farm fields and the Isar River.

Sitangkai

4.661528°,119.391872° - Vantor

Sitangkai is a town in Tawi-Tawi Province, Philippines, with most of its infrastructure built atop stilts or piles of coral stones in the Celebes Sea. Although footbridges mostly connect one structure to another, boats are the primary mode of transportation, earning Sitangkai the nickname, “Venice of the Philippines.” It is the southernmost place in the Philippines, with a population of about 37,000.

Merowe Dam

18.668889°,32.050278° - NASA / Google Timelapse

The Merowe Dam - built along the Nile River in Sudan - is the largest hydroelectric project in Africa. River diversion began in 2004, with construction finishing in 2009. Upon completion, the dam doubled Sudan’s electricity supply. As the dam backed up and expanded the flow of the river into a reservoir, the surface area of the Nile increased roughly 270 square miles (699 square kilometers) and displaced 70,000 indigenous people who relied on the land for farming. Because of the warm climate in the region, combined with this increase in surface area, the reservoir is now experiencing evaporation losses of 396.3 billion gallons (1.5 billion cubic meters) of water every year, roughly 8 percent of the water allocated to Sudan from the 1959 Nile Waters Treaty.

Shasta Mountain

41.409196°,-122.194888° - Planet

Mount Shasta is a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. Rising 14,179 feet (4,322 m), it is the second-highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth-highest in the state. Surrounding the mountain is evidence of deforestation through clearcutting — a methodical practice of uniformly cutting down trees in a contained area. The process is controversial for its effect on the land’s topsoil, which is also removed with the trees, leaving patches of gray deforested areas.

Downtown Vancouver

49.284167°,-123.121111° - Nearmap

The commercial center of Vancouver, British Columbia — known as the “Downtown Peninsula” — extends like a thumb into the Strait of Georgia, which leads to the broader Pacific Ocean. This area contains most of the city’s remaining historic buildings and nearly all of its tallest skyscrapers and residential towers. Downtown Vancouver houses about 62,000 people, while the Greater Vancouver area has a population of 2.6 million, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada.

Kalmat Khor

25.340297°,64.055558° - Vantor

A peninsula branches into Kalmat Khor, a lagoon on the southern coast of Pakistan. This region is covered by mudflats that are submerged at high tide — usually in June and July — and reemerge during low tide. The small green areas shown are pockets of mangrove forest, and even smaller red-orange patches are salt deposits.

Yerevan

40.185282°,44.515013° - Vantor

Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia, with just over one million inhabitants. This Overview features the Kentron district, the city’s cultural and commercial center, planned in a radial-circular arrangement. Many of Yerevan’s landmarks are visible here, including Republic Square, the Armenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Blue Mosque, Cascade Complex, and more.

Majara Residence

27.071588°,56.427011° - Vantor

Majara Residence is a seaside resort on the Iranian island of Hormuz, located in the Persian Gulf. Constructed in 2019 and 2020, it consists of 200 colorful domes (some interconnected) that form 17 guest suites and public facilities like cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops. The domes are built of rammed earth and sand, and are painted to reflect the various natural colors of Hormuz’s landscape.

Derry Fall Foliage

42.893582°,-71.276123° - Nearmap

Colorful fall foliage appears in Derry, New Hampshire, USA. Around this time of year, with the arrival of colder temperatures, leaves begin to change their colors, creating a marvelous and fleeting view before winter. New Hampshire is a popular state for “leaf-peeping” tourists, with more than 4.3 million people visiting the state in autumn of 2021.

Stay Grounded

-12.455385°,130.838988° - Nearmap

“Stay Grounded” is a large-scale ground mural painted on an abandoned parking lot in Darwin City, Australia. The roughly 16,000-square-foot (1,500-sq-m) piece was painted by artist Kitt Bennett in stages, starting with a skeleton and adding layers of body systems until the final figure, seen here, emerged.

Midtown Manhattan Shadows

40.761103°,-73.980163° - Nearmap

Shadows of skyscrapers in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Midtown is home to some of the city’s most prominent buildings and tourist attractions, including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and Rockefeller Center, among others. It accommodates upwards of 60 million tourists every year.

Lake Nasser

22.750000°,32.510000° - NASA

This Overview shows a portion of Lake Nasser, a vast reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Covering 2,027 square miles (5,250 sq km), it is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. Much of Lake Nasser’s west bank (bottom) is covered with sand, while its east bank (top) has little to no sand coverage, as wind is not strong enough to transport sand across the Nile Valley.

Ceilândia

-15.819444°,-48.110278° - Vantor

Ceilândia is the most populous administrative region in the Federal District of Brazil, with nearly 500,000 inhabitants. Located just west of Brasília, it was created in the 1970s to prevent overcrowded shanty towns from developing in the capital city. With nearly half of Ceilândia's residents hailing from the Northeast — or "Nordeste" — Region, the city has a vibrant culture with unique styles of dance, music and cuisine.

Temple of the Heart

40.788644°,-119.203017° - Nearmap

“Temple of the Heart” served as The Temple at this year’s Burning Man Festival in Black Rock City, Nevada. Designed by artists Ela Madej and Reed Finlay, it depicts an upside-down flower with its stem reaching skyward, serving as both a beacon and a sundial. The Temple, which changes design every year and offers a place of reflection, is usually burned on the eighth and final night of the event. However, this year’s burn was delayed due to multiple days of rain.

Whiting Oil Refinery

41.667547°,-87.480156° - Nearmap

The Whiting Refinery is an oil refinery located in Whiting, Indiana. It is the sixth largest refinery in the USA, spanning 1,400 acres (5.7 sq km) with a daily capacity of more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil. A 2023 study by the Environmental Integrity Project listed the Whiting facility as one of the worst-polluting refineries in the country, reporting it dumped 31 million pounds of total dissolved solids, 9 million pounds of chloride, more than 40,000 pounds of oil and grease, and many other pollutants into Lake Michigan in 2021.