Coordinates & Chronicles
A map shows you where. We tell you why it matters.
At Þingvellir, Iceland’s Alþingi transformed an open rift valley into a national assembly for law, judgment and public debate beginning in 930.
LOCATION RECORD 031: Þingvellir National Park: The Rift Written Across Iceland
Þingvellir National Park exposes Iceland’s active rift, where the North American and Eurasian plates pull...
LOCATION RECORD 030: Yellowstone National Park: The Caldera That Never Went Quiet
Yellowstone National Park sits above an active volcanic system powering more than 10,000 hydrothermal features...
LOCATION RECORD 029: Station Nord: Five People Against the High Arctic
Station Nord keeps a 1,800-meter runway operating year-round in northern Greenland, where five specialists support...
LOCATION RECORD 028: Riversleigh Fossil Site: The Rainforest Beneath the Outback
Riversleigh Fossil Site preserves Australia’s ancient rainforest fauna beneath today’s dry Queensland outback in exceptionally...
LOCATION RECORD 027: Pusharo Petroglyphs: The Wall Without a Translation
Hidden along Peru’s Palotoa River, the Pusharo Petroglyphs preserve monumental Amazonian rock art whose makers...
LOCATION RECORD 026: Ny-Ålesund: From Coal Mine to Climate Observatory
Ny-Ålesund is the world’s northernmost year-round research station, where international teams monitor Arctic change at...
LOCATION RECORD 025: McMurdo Station: The Station That Put Gaianyx on the Map
McMurdo Station is Antarctica’s largest research base—and the remote working outpost that helped place Gaianyx...
LOCATION RECORD 024: Lassen Volcanic National Park: The Mountain Is Quiet, Not Retired
Lassen Volcanic National Park brings all four primary volcano types into one landscape of plug...
LOCATION RECORD 023: Halley VI Research Station: Science on Moving Ice
Halley VI Research Station stands on hydraulic legs and skis, carrying Antarctic science across the...
LOCATION RECORD 022: Guayabo National Monument: The Engineered City Without a Name
Guayabo National Monument preserves ancient stone roads, aqueducts and drainage works engineered for Costa Rica’s...
LOCATION RECORD 021: Great Himalayan National Park: The Vertical Refuge
Great Himalayan National Park rises from river forests to peaks above 6,000 meters, protecting a...
LOCATION RECORD 020: Göbekli Tepe: Rewriting Civilization
Before cities, metal or pottery, hunter-gatherers raised Göbekli Tepe’s monumental pillars—and forced history to redraw...
LOCATION RECORD 019: Garamba National Park: The Long Defense of the Wild
Garamba National Park protects Central Africa’s forest–savanna frontier, where elephants, Kordofan giraffes and restored white...
LOCATION RECORD 018: Eyjafjallajökull: When Ice, Fire and Airspace Collided
Eyjafjallajökull is Iceland’s ice-covered stratovolcano whose 2010 eruption transformed magma, glacial water and ash into...
LOCATION RECORD 017: Dinosaur Provincial Park: The Badlands Archive
Dinosaur Provincial Park exposes Alberta’s 75-million-year-old fossil beds, preserving one of Earth’s richest records of...
LOCATION RECORD 016: Cueva de las Manos: The Human Signal in Stone
Cueva de las Manos preserves Patagonia’s ancient hand stencils, guanaco hunts and mineral pigments across...
LOCATION RECORD 015: Cocos Island National Park: Where the Pacific Currents Gather
Cocos Island National Park protects an isolated Costa Rican rainforest and surrounding Pacific waters where...
LOCATION RECORD 014: Chitwan National Park: The Terai Refuge Beneath the Himalayas
Chitwan National Park protects Nepal’s Terai grasslands, sal forests and river corridors—critical habitat for rhinoceroses,...
LOCATION RECORD 013: Chengjiang Fossil Site: The Seafloor That Preserved the Cambrian Explosion
Chengjiang Fossil Site preserves an early Cambrian marine ecosystem whose soft-bodied fossils transformed the record...
LOCATION RECORD 012: Chavín de Huántar: The Engineered Temple of the High Andes
Chavín de Huántar is a high-Andean ceremonial complex where stone galleries, ritual plazas and the...
LOCATION RECORD 011: Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park: The Ancient Plateau at the Heart of the Cerrado
Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park protects an ancient Brazilian plateau of Cerrado savanna, quartzite canyons,...
LOCATION RECORD 010: Cave of Altamira: The Painted Ceiling That Rewrote Human History
The Cave of Altamira preserves a Paleolithic painted ceiling whose bison, engravings and mineral pigments...
LOCATION RECORD 009: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park: The Living Forest of the Albertine Rift
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park protects an ancient Ugandan rainforest where mountain gorillas and exceptional Albertine...
