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Salar de Uyuni (or “Salar de Tunupa”) is the world’s largest salt flat, or playa, at over 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 sq mi) in area. It is in the Daniel Campos Province in Potosí in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of 3,656 m (11,995 ft) above sea level.

The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes that existed around forty thousand years ago but had all evaporated over time. It is now covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. The large area, clear skies, and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar ideal for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. Following rain, a thin layer of dead calm water transforms the flat into the world’s largest mirror, 129 km (80 mi) across.

The Salar serves as the major transport route across the Bolivian Altiplano and is a prime breeding ground for several species of flamingos. Salar de Uyuni is also a climatological transitional zone since the towering tropical cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus incus clouds that form in the eastern part of the salt flat during the summer cannot permeate beyond its drier western edges, near the Chilean border and the Atacama Desert.

Salar has been used as a filming location for movies such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017; as planet Crait), The Fall (2006), Salt and Fire (2016), The Unseen (2017), and several others.

Salar de Uyuni is part of the Altiplano of Bolivia in South America. The Altiplano is a high plateau, which was formed during uplift of the Andes mountains. The plateau includes fresh and saltwater lakes as well as salt flats and is surrounded by mountains with no drainage outlets.

The geological history of the Salar is associated with a sequential transformation between several vast lakes. Some 30,000 to 42,000 years ago, the area was part of a giant prehistoric lake, Lake Minchin. Its age was estimated by radiocarbon dating shells from outcropping sediments and carbonate reefs and varies between reported studies. Lake Minchin (named after Juan B. Minchin of Oruro) later transformed into Paleo Lake Tauca having a maximal depth of 140 meters (460 ft), and an estimated age of 13,000 to 18,000 or 14,900 to 26,100 years, depending on the source. The youngest prehistoric lake was Coipasa, which was radiocarbon dated to 11,500 to 13,400 years ago. When it dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó and Uru Uru, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Salar de Uyuni. Salar de Uyuni spreads over 10,582 km², which is roughly 100 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. Lake Poopó is a neighbor of the much larger Lake Titicaca. During the wet season, Titicaca overflows and discharges into Poopó, which in turn, floods Salar De Coipasa and Salar de Uyuni.

Lacustrine mud that is interbedded with salt and saturated with brine underlies the surface of Salar de Uyuni. The brine is a saturated solution of sodium chloride, lithium chloride, and magnesium chloride in water. It is covered with a solid salt crust varying in thickness between tens of centimeters and a few meters. The center of the Salar contains a few islands, which are the remains of the tops of ancient volcanoes submerged during the era of Lake Minchin. They include unusual and fragile coral-like structures and deposits that often consist of fossils and algae.

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An image from Salar De Uyuni Reflection

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Shenyang, formerly known as Fengtian (Chinese: 奉天) or by its Manchu name Mukden, is a major Chinese sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Liaoning province. Located in central-north Liaoning, it’s the province’s most populous city, with a total population of 9,070,093 inhabitants as of the 2020 census. Among the resident population of the city, the male population is 4,521,021, accounting for 49.85%; the female population is 4,549,072, accounting for 50.15%. The sex ratio of the total population (with women as 100, the ratio of men to women) dropped from 102.10 in the sixth national census in 2010 to 99.38. It’s built-up (or metro) area encompassing 8 Shenyang urban districts and the 4 Fushun urban districts, was home to 8,192,848 inhabitants in 2020. It’s also the largest city in Northeast China by urban population, with 7.49 million people (2020 census).

Shenyang is also the central city of one of the major megalopolises in China, the Greater Shenyang Metropolitan Area, which has a total population over 23 million. The city’s administrative region includes the ten metropolitan districts of Shenyang proper, the county-level city of Xinmin, and two counties: Kangping and Faku.

The Manchu people conquered Shenyang in the 17th century and briefly used it as the capital of Qing-dynasty China. The Battle of Mukden took place in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. Japan’s subsequent victory allowed Tokyo to annex the region west of the old city and to increase Japanese influence on Shenyang; in September 1931 the Mukden Incident led the Japanese to further invade and occupy the rest of Northeast China, forming the puppet state of Manchukuo. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Shenyang remained a Kuomintang stronghold, but the Communists captured it in 1948 after the Liaoshen Campaign.

Along with its nearby cities, Shenyang is an important industrial center in China and serves as the transportation and commercial hub of China’s northeast—particularly involved in links with Japan, Russia, and Korea. A center of heavy industry in China since the 1930s and the spearhead of the Chinese central government’s Northeast Area Revitalization Plan, the city has been diversifying its industry, including expanding into the service sector. Growing industries include software, automotive, and electronics.

Shenyang is also a major city for scientific research, appearing among the top 200 Science Cities in the world as tracked by the Nature Index. The city is home to several major universities, notably Northeastern University and Liaoning University, members of China’s prestigious universities in the Double First-Class University Plan. Wikipedia

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An image from Shenyang, China

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Shiretoko National Park covers most of the Shiretoko Peninsula at the northeastern tip of the island of Hokkaidō, Japan. The word “Shiretoko” is derived from an Ainu word “sir etok”, meaning “the place where the earth protrudes”.

One of the most remote regions in Japan, much of the peninsula is only accessible on foot or by boat. Shiretoko is best known as the home of Japan’s largest brown bear population and for offering views of Kunashiri Island, ownership of which Japan and Russia dispute. Shiretoko is also the home of many birds, such as Steller’s sea eagle and white-tailed eagle, and marine animals such as spotted seal, orca whale, and sperm whale. The park has a hot springs waterfall called Kamuiwakka Falls (カムイワッカの滝, Kamuiwakka-no-taki). Kamui wakka means “water of the gods” in Ainu.

The forests of the park are temperate and subalpine mixed forests; the main tree species include Sakhalin fir (Abies sachalinensis), Erman’s birch (Betula ermanii), and Mongolian oak (Quercus mongolica). Beyond the forest limit, there are impenetrable Siberian dwarf pine (Pinus pumila) thickets.

In 2005, UNESCO designated the area a World Heritage Site, advising to develop the property jointly with the Kuril Islands of Russia as a transboundary “World Heritage Peace Park”. Shiretoko’s listing as Natural Heritage was seen by the Indigenous Ainu as contradicting the long history of Ainu settlement in the park area.

The Shiretoko Park Nature Center is in Shari. It serves as the visitor center and includes a movie about the park, a restaurant, and a gift shop. Wikipedia

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An image from Shiretoko National Park

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