A - Z of Geographical Place Names

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East Grinstead: a town in the county of Sussex, UK. The Church of Scientology has its UK headquarters here, and the immediately surrounding area also accommodates centres for the Latter Day Saints religion (Mormonism), Opus Dei (a rather secretive and controversial sect within the Catholic Church) and the Rosicrucians. Interesting!

Friendswood, Texas (Originally a Quaker settlement south of Houston. These days, the Quakers are very much in the minority there.)

Gansu, a province in China.

Hutchinson Island - a barrier island on the east coast of Florida near Port St Lucie

Ifafa Beach, a small coastal resort on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

(Mingo) Junction, OH - where Dean Martin was from.

K2 - In Pakistan. World's second tallest mountain (measured as height above sea level)

Littlehempston, a village and civil parish in the South Hams District of Devon, England.

Machoi Glacier - in India in Jammu and Kashmir

Nabatiah Governorate, one of the six governorates of Lebanon.

oceania - a loosely defined group of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Pala, a town in Chad and the capital of the region of Mayo-Kebbi Ouest.

Quartz Mountain near Altus, Oklahoma. Quartz Mountain is the top portion of a peak in the Wichita Mountains that still sticks out above ground level. Most of the Wichita Mountains are mostly underground now.

Note the Wichita Uplift below.

Reading Railroad operated in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states. Until the decline in anthracite loadings in the Coal Region after World War II, it was one of the most prosperous corporations in the United States. Reduced coal traffic coupled with highway competition and short hauls forced it into bankruptcy in the 1970s. The railroad was merged into Conrail in 1976, and lasted into 2000.

Santorini: A Greek island, known in ancient times as Thera, the largest of a small archipelago. The 'lagoon' in the middle of these islands (see map) in the collapsed caldera (crater) of an old volcano, which erupted cataclysmically in about 1600 BC. The resultant tsunami may have been instrumental in the destruction of the Minoan civilization in Crete, which is celebrated in legends such as those of the Labyrinth, and the Minotaur.

Tristan da Cunha - A British Possession, it is one of a very remote group of islands in the South Atlantic also named Tristan da Cunha. I think that the island of Tristan da Cunha is the only inhabited island of the group.