Marcus Kane

I'm Marcus Kane, and I write the Interesting Facts series here on the site.

I grew up in a small town in Montana where the public library had about two hundred books. I read most of them twice. Geography wasn't a school subject for me, it was an escape route: a way to picture Lisbon or the Atacama Desert before I'd ever left the county. I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I studied Geography and Cultural Studies mostly because I wanted an excuse to keep asking "wait, why is that true?"

These days I live in Portland. I've made it to over 40 US states with a camera in the passenger seat, and I still get the same jolt I got as a kid finding out that Chile is longer than the distance from New York to Los Angeles or that Bolivia has two capital cities. I'm not a professional geographer or a travel influencer. I'm just someone who never lost the habit of looking things up twice to make sure they're right, then writing them down the way I'd tell a friend at 11pm.

Articles by Marcus Kane

Singapore: A City-State That Rewrote Its Own Rules

Singapore: A City-State That Rewrote Its Own Rules

A tiny island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula that went from swampland to global hub in sixty years. Singapore breaks more rules than it follows.

Marcus Kane
Sierra Leone: The West African Country Named After Lion Mountains

Sierra Leone: The West African Country Named After Lion Mountains

A small West African country with a name borrowed from a Portuguese sailor, a coastline most people have never heard of, and a story worth telling.

Marcus Kane
Seychelles: 115 Islands Where Granite Meets the Sea

Seychelles: 115 Islands Where Granite Meets the Sea

Seychelles is the only country in the world built on mid-ocean granite. The islands look like nowhere else, and the population would fit inside a college football stadium.

Marcus Kane
Serbia: A Crossroads Country with a Loud, Layered Past

Serbia: A Crossroads Country with a Loud, Layered Past

Serbia sits at a crossroads where empires kept colliding. The food is heavy, the music is louder, and the history goes back further than most countries can claim.

Marcus Kane
Senegal: West Africa's Gateway and the Land of Teranga

Senegal: West Africa's Gateway and the Land of Teranga

Senegal anchors West Africa's Atlantic coast with pink lakes, the world's westernmost point on the mainland, and a hospitality code that locals call teranga.

Marcus Kane
Saudi Arabia: A Desert Kingdom on Top of an Ocean of Oil

Saudi Arabia: A Desert Kingdom on Top of an Ocean of Oil

Saudi Arabia covers most of the Arabian Peninsula with sand, mountains, and oil fields. It holds the two holiest cities in Islam and the largest continuous sand desert on the planet.

Marcus Kane
Sao Tome and Principe: Africa's Second-Smallest Country

Sao Tome and Principe: Africa's Second-Smallest Country

A two-island country smaller than Rhode Island, sitting right on the equator, with a colonial cocoa past and a forest most people will never see.

Marcus Kane
San Marino: The World's Oldest Surviving Republic

San Marino: The World's Oldest Surviving Republic

San Marino has been a republic since the year 301. That means it had been running itself for nearly fifteen centuries before the United States existed.

Marcus Kane
Samoa: The Country That Skipped a Whole Day

Samoa: The Country That Skipped a Whole Day

Samoa once erased an entire Friday from its calendar. That story tells you almost everything you need to know about how this country works.

Marcus Kane
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 32 Islands, One Country

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 32 Islands, One Country

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a chain of 32 islands in the eastern Caribbean. Only nine are inhabited, and one of them is still erupting.

Marcus Kane
Saint Lucia: The Caribbean Island with Two Nobel Laureates

Saint Lucia: The Caribbean Island with Two Nobel Laureates

Saint Lucia is a small Caribbean island with twin volcanic spires, a drive-in volcano, and more Nobel Prize winners per capita than any country on Earth.

Marcus Kane
Saint Kitts and Nevis: The Smallest Country in the Americas

Saint Kitts and Nevis: The Smallest Country in the Americas

A two-island federation smaller than most American counties, with a defunct sugar railway, a dormant volcano, and a passport you can buy.

Marcus Kane