James' World 2

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Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country enclaved by South Africa. It is a mountainous country situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. Lesotho has an area of just over 30,000 km² (11,600 sq mi) and has a population of about 2 million. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. The official languages are Sesotho and English.

Lesotho was previously the British Crown Colony of Basutoland, but it declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is now a fully sovereign state and is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The name Lesotho roughly translates to “land of the Sotho”.

The original inhabitants of Lesotho were the San people. Examples of their rock art can be found in the mountains throughout the area.

Modern Lesotho, then called Basutoland, emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1820 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.

The Basuto pony, one of the unique species of horse breed, arrived in Basutoland in 1825. In rural areas of Lesotho, the horse-like species has existed as a popular mode of transport.

Further evolution of the state emerged from conflicts between British and Dutch colonists leaving the Cape Colony following its seizure from the French-allied Dutch by the British in 1795, and also from the Orange River Sovereignty and subsequent Orange Free State. Missionaries Thomas Arbousset, Eugène Casalis, and Constant Gosselin from the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, invited by Moshoeshoe I, were placed at Morija, developing Sesotho orthography and printed works in the Sesotho language between 1837 and 1855. Casalis, acting as translator and providing advice on foreign affairs, helped set up diplomatic channels and acquire guns for use against the encroaching Europeans and the Griqua people. Wikipedia

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An image from Lesotho Capital

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Lake Atitlán is a lake in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre mountain range. It is in the Sololá Department of southwestern Guatemala. It is the deepest lake in Central America.

The lake has a maximum depth of about 340 meters (1,120 ft) and an average depth of 220 meters (720 ft). Its surface area is 130.1 km² (50.2 sq mi). It is approximately 18 km × 8 km (11.2 mi × 5.0 mi) with around 20 km³ (4.8 cu mi) of water. Atitlán is technically an endorheic lake, feeding into two nearby rivers rather than draining into the ocean. It is shaped by deep surrounding escarpments and three volcanoes on its southern flank. The lake basin is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous caldera formed by an eruption 84,000 years ago. The culture of the towns and villages surrounding Lake Atitlán is influenced by the Maya people. The lake is about 50 kilometers (31 mi) west-northwest of Antigua. It should not be confused with the smaller Lake Amatitlán.

Lake Atitlán is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and is one of Guatemala’s most important national and international tourist attractions. German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt called it “the most beautiful lake in the world,” and Aldous Huxley famously wrote of it in his 1934 travel book Beyond the Mexique Bay: “Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing.”

The area around San Marcos has particularly tall cliffs abutting the lake and in recent years has become renowned for cliff diving. Wikipedia

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An image from Lake Atitlan

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Chongqing, alternately romanized as Chungking (/ˈtʃʊŋˈkɪŋ/), is a municipality in southwest China.

Administratively, it is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the central government of the People’s Republic of China (the other three are Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), and the only such municipality located deep inland. The municipality of Chongqing, roughly the size of Austria, includes the city of Chongqing as well as various discontiguous cities. Due to a classification technicality, Chongqing municipality can claim to be the largest city proper in the world—though it does not have the world’s largest urban area. Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, a major aviation hub serving Chongqing metropolitan areas and Western China, is one of the top 50 busiest airports in the world, and the city’s monorail system is the world’s longest and busiest monorails system with the greatest number of stations (70).

During the Republic of China (ROC) era, Chongqing was a municipality located within Sichuan Province. It served as its wartime capital during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). The current municipality was separated from Sichuan province on 14 March 1997 to help develop the central and western parts of China. The Chongqing administrative municipality has a population of over 30 million. The city of Chongqing, comprising nine urban and suburban districts, has a population of 8,750,000 as of the 2018 estimation. According to the 2010 census, Chongqing is the most populous Chinese municipality, and also the largest direct-controlled municipality in China, containing 26 districts, eight counties, and four autonomous counties.

The official abbreviation of the city, “Yú” (渝), was approved by the State Council on 18 April 1997. This abbreviation is derived from the old name of a part of the Jialing River that runs through Chongqing and feeds into the Yangtze River.

Chongqing has an extensive history and a rich culture. As one of China’s National Central Cities, it serves as a financial center of the Sichuan Basin and the upstream Yangtze. It is a major manufacturing and transportation center; a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit described it as one of China’s “13 emerging megalopolises”. Chongqing is ranked as a Beta (global second-tier) city. Chongqing is one of the top 100 cities in the world by scientific research outputs as tracked by the Nature Index, and home to several notable universities, including Chongqing University, Southwest University, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, and Chongqing Normal University. Wikipedia

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An image from Chongqing, China

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