The Size of Wales
Not a week goes by without reading a news article containing the phrase “the size of wales“. Although it seems to be the fashionable way for the media to get a message across, I’m not sure if the analogy means much to the majority of people - most of my friends in the USA didn’t even know where Wales was when I first met them!
For example, The Australian posted an article today titled Solar city sets sights on ending pollution. In the 4th paragraph they state “It [the Spanish region of Navarre] is a sparsely populated region of 600,000 people in an area half the size of Wales.” How many people reading the article would know how big the region was by reading this?
I did a quick search on Google for the phrase “the size of wales” and was amazed how many web sites and news articles referenced the phrase. There’s even a cool web site that’s taken advantage of this phenomenon and features an online calculator that will work out an area in terms of “the size of Wales”. For example, input 100 miles as the length and breadth, hit calculate and the answer comes out as 1.247 times the size of Wales. Useful? Probably not. But judging by the range of Google search results, it seems to be quite a popular tool. Here are a few examples:
- Last summer every sea creature across an area twice the size of Wales was asphyxiated by severely depleted oxygen levels…
- …there are sheep farms in Australia the size of Wales
- …about 26000 square miles, about the size of West Virginia, and over three time the size of Wales
- The asteroid, three times the size of Wales
- …his team hope to establish a 20000 km2 conservation-landscape the size of Wales
- …it is about the size of Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks combined, or about 60% the size of Wales
- …the North polar ice cap is shrinking by an area several times the size of Wales every year.
- This remote archipelago of 700 islands covers an area half the size of Wales
I’d be interested to hear what picture “the size of Wales” conjures up in your mind?
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June 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 pm
This is so funny! Nobody ever says “the size of Pennsylvania”, I wonder why that is? :O)
June 4th, 2007 at 6:08 am
I made a comic about this just before reading this! Small world isn’t it?
http://cheese.smackjeeves.com/comics/161352/
Or is stumbleupon WAY more sophisticated than I gave it credit for?
June 4th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Small world indeed (a bit bigger than the size of Wales though).
StumbleUpon is great - drives a lot of traffic to this site and is great for discovering web sites you’d never normally find.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
very interesting…just out of curiosity i did a google search for the size of kansas…the 2 results scared the bejesus outta me! something about a deadzone the size of kansas and i want to napalm an area the size of kansas…i think the size of wales is a much safer topic!
June 4th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
*laughs* Great article Steve. I love how such a “small” place can gain so much attention. The points made me laugh out loud and then have to explain to my work colleagues what was so funny. I especially liked the part about Americans not knowing where Wales was. Americans always assume Canada is WAY colder than in the States, when really we’re not that far off from some states.
Anyhow, thanks for the read. As always, I enjoyed it.
-Nat
June 4th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
lisaq: there’s a few good ones for Kansas…
“My mother often tells me I am pretty, but many mothers tell their daughters that (even if we have a zit the size of Kansas on our nose).”
“The grass needs to be cut, and mosquitos the size of Kansas are biting Greta’s legs.”
“We also made an oatmeal cookie that is easily the size of Kansas.”
Natalie: The standard question from my friends would be “Wales? Is that in England?” Then again, my US Geography isn’t too clever either!