Is This A Chinese City In Malaysia?
Forest City is being built in the Malaysian state of Johor in the southern part of the country. Here, the Johore Strait acts as a natural border between Malaysia and the independent city-state Singapore. It is one of the most ambitious urban development projects currently underway. An entire new city built from scratch.
Osaka’s Gate Tower: Highway Through A Building
The property was owned by a business since the early Meiji era but when business declined, so did the buildings in the 1970s. The property holder refused to give up the land, even though new building permits had been refused to him. The highway corporation and the property owner negotiated for 5 years and what you see today is their compromise.
Iceland Is Growing New Forests For The First Time In 1,000 Years
The landscape of Iceland has changed a lot in a thousand years. When the Vikings first arrived in the ninth century, the land was covered in 25 to 40 percent forest.
How The English Language Is Taking Over the Planet
English is everywhere, and everywhere, English dominates. From inauspicious beginnings on the edge of a minor European archipelago, it has grown to vast size and astonishing influence. Almost 400m people speak it as their first language; a billion more know it as a secondary tongue. Is there any point in resisting?
When The Sahara Was Green
The climate of the Sahara was completely different thousands of years ago. And we’re not talking about just a few years of extra rain. We’re talking about a climate that was so wet for so long that animals and humans alike made themselves at home in the middle of the Sahara.
Rubber Tires — A Dirty Business
The booming global tire market is worth billions – but this comes at a high price, both to humans and the environment. Over 50 million car tires are sold each year in Germany alone. But where does the natural rubber for them come from?
The Totally Isolated Tribe Of The Andaman
There are still people in this world who have no idea that civilization exists. On remote islands in the Bay of Bengal live mysterious tribes. Their origins are mysterious, but this film reveals how modern DNA analysis suggests that these ancient people have close links to Africa, from where they have been separated for 100,000 years.
When The iPhone Nearly Killed A Nation
Nokia dominated the first decade of the cellphone boom, becoming a beloved brand around the world and pumping billions of dollars into the Finnish economy. Then, along came Steve Jobs and his iPhone in 2007 and ruined everything. Tens of thousands of jobs were lost. Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft. And Finns took a serious hit to their country pride.
The Impossible Architecture Of Dreams
Where do we go when we dream? This surreal territory has proved fertile ground for a new generation of contemporary artists working at the intersection of architecture, interior design, and technology. The dreamscapes of these creations offer an intriguing insight into a new movement in digital art.
The Desert Soil That Could Save Lives
Chile’s desiccated Atacama Desert was once considered a dead zone, but it hides great riches that could help us tackle a major threat to human health. “The premise was that since the conditions are so harsh in the Atacama Desert, organisms become adapted to those conditions.”
The City Left Behind By China’s Nuclear Ambitions
Li Yang grew up in what he thought was a boring town. It was called 404, like the error code, and sat a couple hours from the nearest city, in the sun-beaten Gobi Desert of western China. It was once part of a massive nuclear weapons base in the People’s Republic of China.
Just A Moment: Seoul Street Photography Series
Chris da Canha is a skateboarder and photographer from Durban, South Africa, living in Seoul, South Korea. He works in fashion and editorial photography and spends his free time shooting the streets.
Sintra’s Mysterious ‘Inverted Tower’
Steeped in strange symbology, the breath-taking ‘inverted tower’, or initiation well, found at the heart of Sintra’s Quinta da Regaleira celebrates Portugal’s unique historical connection to the mysterious and enigmatic Knights Templar.
Dracula Bosses Erect Billboard That Comes To Life At Night
The BBC decided to give Dracula fans a fright with two billboards of the show that come to life at night. A shadow of the infamous vampire appears in the center of the advert, which looks as though it has been cast by a number of wooden stakes plunged into the advert.
The True Story Of The White Island Eruption
In December 2019, around 100 tourists set out for New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island, where an active volcano has attracted hundreds of thousands of vacationers since the early 1990s. Then the volcano exploded. What happened next reveals troubling questions about the risks we’re willing to take when lives hang in the balance.
Rhys Frampton Captures Two Unique Communities In America
His first commission documented the Compton Cowboys, a group of people who created a ranch in a notoriously violent part of Los Angeles. His latest Wrangler commission was in Marfa, Texas, where he was tasked with capturing the Wall of Death group – America’s original extreme motorcycle show.
Tourism Is Eating The World
The number of international tourist arrivals has been increasing more or less exponentially since the mid-20th century, and totaled about 1.4 billion in 2018. Europe has seen the biggest share, but the Asia-Pacific region is growing fast.
Photos Of Leningrad (St Petersburg) In The Early 1960s
St Petersburg is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. It is Russia’s second-largest city after Moscow. These fascinating color photos captured street scenes of Leningrad (St Petersburg) in 1961.
The Shipwrecked Sailors And The Wandering Cod
In the remote archipelago of Lofoten, Arctic cod have been dried on oceanfront racks since the age of the Vikings. This is the unlikely story of how the humble fish became king of Norway.
The Strange Persistence Of First Languages
Czech was the only language I knew until the age of 2, when my family began a migration westward, from what was then Czechoslovakia through Austria, then Italy, settling eventually in Montreal, Canada. Along the way, a clutter of languages introduced themselves into my life.
La Linea, Europe’s Narco City
La Linea is a Spanish coastal city built on the drug trade. Smugglers and policemen often come from the same street. Off the Grid met people on both sides of the divide.