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Please note Articles about things considered unusual may be accepted in Wikipedia if they otherwise fulfill the criteria for inclusion. This page is not an article, and the only criterion for inclusion is consensus that an article fits on this page. Lists of unusual things in Wikipedia mainspace (see Category:Lists of things considered unusual) should have an external reference for each entry that specifically classifies it as unusual, to avoid making it a point of view (POV) fork of original research. Still, all such lists risk being deleted for lack of a neutral definition of what counts as "unusual".

Of the over six million articles in the English Wikipedia there are some articles that Wikipedians have identified as being somewhat unusual. These articles are verifiable, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are a bit odd, whimsical, or something one would not expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appear idiosyncratic. If you wish to add an article to this list, the article in question should preferably meet one or more of these criteria:

• The article is something a reasonable person would not expect to find in a standard encyclopedia.
• The subject is a highly unusual combination of concepts, such as cosmic latte, death from laughter, etc.
• The subject is a clear anomaly—something that defies common sense, common expectations or common knowledge, such as Bir Tawil, Märket, Phineas Gage, Snow in Florida, etc.
• The subject is well-documented for unexpected notoriety or an unplanned cult following at extreme levels, such as Ampelmännchen or All your base are belong to us.
• The subject is a notorious hoax, such as the Sokal affair or Mary Toft.
• The subject might be found amusing, though serious.
• The subject is distinct amongst other similar ones.
• The article is a list or collection of articles or subjects meeting the criteria above.

This definition is not precise or absolute; some articles could still be considered unusual even if they do not fit these guidelines.

Each entry on this list should be an article on its own (not merely a section in a less unusual article) and of decent quality, and in large meeting Wikipedia's manual of style. For unusual contributions that are of greater levity, see Wikipedia:Silly Things.

In this list, a star () indicates a featured article. A plus () indicates a good article.

Africa

	Akon City	A 2000s R&B singer is planning his very own city in his native Senegal, based around his very own cryptocurrency which he calls "Akoin".
	Bir Tawil	One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country. An American trekked there and claimed it in 2014 as the Kingdom of North Sudan so he could make his daughter a princess.
	Blue Desert	Following the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, the United Nations gave several tons of blue paint to a Belgian artist, so he could commemorate it by painting a line of boulders in the Sinai Desert blue.
	Boulders Beach	A beach on the Southern African coast, near an urban residential area, known for being home to a colony of several thousand penguins.
	Congo Pedicle	What happens when a tyrannical king decides he wants to hunt game in a swamp.
	Dallol (hydrothermal system)	A region surrounding a volcano in Ethiopia, known for its alien-looking bright colours, and populated by vast salt plains and extremely hot acidic sulfur-emitting hot springs, that according to some studies, are absent of even the smallest microbes. There is a now-abandoned town of the same name nearby, which formerly held the record of the hottest inhabited place on Earth.
	Gaet'ale Pond	A small lake in Ethiopia that was created in 2005 after an earthquake. It's not bitter, it's just really, really salty.
	Jacob's Ladder	It's all very downhill from here.
	Kalakuta Republic	A compound housing Fela Kuti - a famous Nigerian musician - his family, band musicians and recording studio, which he declared independent and used to criticize the Nigerian military junta of the 1970s. They responded by raiding it with over a thousand soldiers, setting it alight, and throwing Fela's mother out of the window.
	Lake Nyos	A lake in northwestern Cameroon that released gas in 1986, killing 1,746 people. One of 2 known gassy lakes, the other being Lake Monoun.
	Mauritania Railway	Mauritania's entire national rail network consists of a single line connecting the centre of the country's iron mining industry with the port city of Nouadhibou. Said line is also home to the world's longest and heaviest trains, filled with iron ore and as long as 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in length.
	Oklo Mine	The former site of the world's only natural nuclear fission reactors.
	Palácio de Ferro	A bright yellow iron building in Luanda dating back to the colonial era, that is noted for the fact that there is no record of who or why it was built - although legend has it that it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the Eiffel Tower.
	Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera	A rock on the Moroccan coast connected to the mainland by an 80-metre-wide (260 ft) tombolo; it is owned by Spain. In 2012, four Moroccan irredentists attempted to storm and take over the territory.
	Republic of Benin (1967)	One of the shortest-lived states in history, it was independent for only seven hours (07:00 to 14:00 on 19 September 1967).
	Socotra	A Yemeni island that is geographically part of Africa, and is known as "the most alien-looking place on Earth" due to its strange flora. This includes the "dragon blood tree" and a tree which produces cucumbers.
	La Tante DC10 Restaurant	A grounded McDonnell Douglas DC-10 passenger aircraft in Accra that has been converted into a giant plane-shaped restaurant.
	Tromelin Island	An island near Madagascar that is famous for being the site of a major humanitarian disaster in the 18th century.
	The Owl House	Not the acclaimed animated LGBT fantasy cartoon that aired on Disney Channel; this is an outdoor museum that was created by a reclusive outsider artist who decorated her inherited house with over 300 glass and concrete sculptures of owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and other forms.
	Umoja, Kenya	An entire women's-only village in Kenya established in response to violence against women in Samburu tribal society.

Antarctica

	Blood Falls	A naturally occurring plume of saltwater that is blood red thanks to its high iron oxide content.
	Mawson Peak	The tallest mountain in the Commonwealth of Australia is not on the mainland, but on a barren, uninhabited island more than 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) away.
	McMurdo Dry Valleys	An area of Antarctica that a) contains an extremely saline body of water, and b) has not experienced rainfall for over two million years.
	Marie Byrd Land	The largest unclaimed territory in the world. Notable for being bigger than Mongolia, having one of Antarctica's biggest human bases, and being the setting of The Thing.
	New Swabia	The Nazi territory in Antarctica.
	Pole of Inaccessibility research station	A short-lived Soviet research station in Antarctica that is now completely covered by snow - save for a small bust of Vladimir Lenin peeking out the ground.
	Villa Las Estrellas	One of only two civilian settlements in Antarctica.

Asia

	798 Art Zone	How an abandoned complex of military factory buildings became the heart of Beijing's modern art scene.
	Aoshima, Ehime	An island where cats outnumber humans 36:1. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see: Tashirojima).
	Artsvashen	An Armenian town surrounded and controlled by Azerbaijan. One of a number of similar towns on this border; others include Yukhari Askipara, Barxudarlı and Karki.
	Atar, Padang Ganting	An Indonesian village with a monument resembling a photocopier.
	Bust of Ferdinand Marcos	A Mount Rushmore in the Philippines, right down to displacing its indigenous inhabitants. It was mercifully blown up by rebels in 2002.
	Camp Bonifas	The bunkers on this golf course feature machine-guns and landmines.
	Chao Mae Tuptim shrine	A shrine dedicated to penises in Bangkok, built in the early 20th century by a Thai businessman, on the edge of his property.
	Christmas Island	A small island and external territory of Australia close to Indonesia that is mainly known for having up to 100 million crabs migrate to spawn there every year.
	Dahala Khagrabari	India inside Bangladesh inside India inside Bangladesh. Formerly the only third-order enclave in the world.
	Darvaza gas crater	A flaming, 70 m (230 ft) wide, 30 m (98 ft) deep crater in the middle of the Karakum Desert, on fire since 1971.
	Dhekelia Power Station	A Cypriot power station that provides power to a British military base that surrounds it.
	Diomede Islands	Two islands in the Bering Strait separated by 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) and 21 hours' time difference.
	Gangkhar Puensum	The tallest mountain nobody has ever summitted, as the Bhutanese government has prohibited mountaineering since 2003.
	Gate Tower Building	A skyscraper in Japan that has a highway offramp passing through its fifth, sixth and seventh floors.
	Hallstatt (China)	An ongoing replica construction of a town in Austria.
	Haesindang Park	Also known as "Penis Park", this is a park on the Korean coast, known for being full of wooden statues of penises, apparently to do with local shamanic folklore.
	Hanazono Room	An indoor swimming pool in Japan used as the site for many pornographic films.
	Hằng Nga Guesthouse	Vietnam's most fantastical building?
	Imsil Cheese Theme Park	I dunno, this place seems a little cheesy to me.
	Jackson Hole, China	A planned resort town outside of Beijing that is based off a small town in Wyoming.
	Jatinga	The Bermuda Triangle of birds.
	Jaxa (state)	A 17th-century microstate located on the Amur River between the Tsardom of Russia and Qing China, with a population mostly consisting of Polish and Ukrainians.
	Jewish Autonomous Oblast	In the depths of Eastern Siberia there's a place with street names in Yiddish, even though 99% of its population is not Jewish.
	Kabul synagogue	The last synagogue in Kabul was inhabited by two men, who both ended up being imprisoned by the Taliban because they got annoyed by the two constantly complaining about each other, before later being converted by one of the men into a kebab restaurant.
	Kai Tak Airport	A major international airport closed in 1998 where planes literally almost crashed constantly into the city due to a right-hand turn over the city.
	Karni Mata Temple	A marble temple famous for 25,000 revered black rats that live in the temple who are considered the ancestors of Charans.
	Kijong-dong	Two unique Korean villages, separated by the DMZ and notable for their arms race of giant flagpoles. The North Korean village contains a propaganda-blasting loudspeaker and zero residents to hear it. Meanwhile its Southern counterpart forbids residency except to families that have been there since before the War, and grows "DMZ rice" that makes the farmers exceptionally wealthy.
	Daeseong-dong
	Korea Central Zoo	A zoo with such wondrous animals as a chimpanzee with a smoking habit, a parrot that sings the praises of Kim Il-sung, and dogs.
	Kowloon Walled City	A former enclave in the city of Hong Kong, known for lawlessness and extremely cramped conditions before it was destroyed and turned into a park.
	Li's field	A supposed forcefield that explains why tropical cyclones swerve away from Hong Kong.
	Living root bridge	Double-decker suspension bridges formed of living plant aerial roots of rubber fig trees by tree shaping common in the southern part of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya.
	Love Land	An erotic-themed sculpture park on Jeju island in South Korea.
	Maijishan Grottoes	A massive complex of hundreds of man-made caves, stairways and thousands of Buddhist sculptures carved into the side of a mountain in the fifth century, high above the surface.
	Masuleh	A village built on the side of a mountain in such a way that most of the walkable space in the village is on the rooftops of the buildings of the layer below.
	Missing Post Office	Where all the world's undeliverable post goes.
	Nahwa	One of only eight counter-enclaves (enclaves of enclaves).
	Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic	A landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan (it is surrounded by three different countries rather than only one, so it is not an enclave).
	Nanjie	A settlement in Henan Province that is often described as "China's last Maoist village", maintaining a collectively-owned economy and public displays and statues of historic Marxist-Leninist leaders.
	National Fisheries Development Board building	Another example of mimetic architecture, this time in Hyderabad, in the form of a building shaped like a humongous fish.
	North Sentinel Island	A small island in the Bay of Bengal, known for being inhabited by a virtually uncontacted isolationist tribe who attack all outsiders who attempt to land on their island. The Indian government leaves them alone, outlawing all travel to the island - although that hasn't stopped some foolish travellers from trying.
	National Route 339	A national highway with a staircase in the middle.
	Neutrality Monument	A massive legged arch built in the capital of Turkmenistan by the eccentric former dictator to commemorate the fact that Turkmenistan is officially neutral. Also used to feature a gold-plated statue of him on top that constantly rotated so that it always faced the sun.
	Okinoshima (Fukuoka)	An entire island that is considered a kami in the Shinto religion, and is continuously inhabited by lone Shinto priests who spend ten-day shifts guarding the shrine on the island. Women are prohibited due to their menstruation, as blood is considered impure in Shinto.
	Ōkunoshima	An island between the Japanese home islands of Honshu and Shikoku formerly home to a chemical weapons plant in WW2, now home to a huge population of feral but largely tame rabbits.
	Om Banna	An Indian shrine dedicated to a supposedly-sentient motorbike.
	Omsk Metro	A metro system with only one station and a total length of zero kilometres.
	Peanut Hole	A delightfully named patch of ocean in the Sea of Okhotsk that is totally surrounded by Russia's EEZ but not inside it. Often the subject of foreign overfishing.
	Porcelain Palace	China's largest and most lavish palace - that is dedicated to the humble public toilet.
	Rednaxela Terrace	A street in Hong Kong, whose name was reportedly reversed due to a clerical error.
	Robot Building	That's not a giant robot looming in Bangkok; it's just a bank's headquarters.
	Roopkund	A small lake in the Himalayas known for mysteriously having hundreds of ancient human skeletons along its edges.
	Ryugyong Hotel	Once, it would have been the world's tallest hotel – except it lacked windows, fittings, or fixtures for over twenty years.
—	San Serriffe	A lesser-known island in the Indian Ocean, subject of the April 1, 1977 Guardian.
	Sansha	A disputed prefecture-level city in Hainan consisting of a collection of atolls and reefs throughout the South China Sea.
	Kingdom of Sedang	In the 1880s, a French adventurer created a kingdom in Vietnam.
	Seikan Tunnel Tappi Shakō Line	The closed funicular that connects an underground train station inside the Seikan Tunnel with a museum.
	Shani Shingnapur	A holy Hindu village that doesn't have any doors.
	Shingō, Aomori	A town in Japan that is (supposedly) home to the tomb of Jesus. The story behind the supposed tomb is even odder.
	Snake Temple	A Chinese temple most notable for having snakes (alive) within its compounds. It also has a snake breeding area.
	Sokh District	An exclave of Uzbekistan enclaved within Kyrgyzstan with a 99% Tajik population.
	Tashirojima	An island in Japan notable for being full of cats. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see: Aoshima, Ehime).
	Thames Town	An entire replica English-style town built as an upscale planned community near Shanghai. Mostly empty, but a popular destination for wedding photography.
	Thimmamma Marrimanu	A single tree with a canopy that covers 19,107 m2, and consequently is considered sacred among followers of several Indian religions.
	Tomb of Suleyman Shah	One of the burial sites of the first Ottoman emperor's grandfather is part of Turkey despite being 27 kilometres (17 mi) south of the country's border with Syria.
	Trunyan	A village in Bali where residents openly lay corpses on the ground and wait for them to decompose instead of cremating or burying them.
	Tsu Station	By kana, the tersest railway station in Japan, serving the capital of an almost as terse prefecture. By stroke count, the tersest in the world. By transliteration, only second-tersest.
	Underground City (Beijing)	A massive complex of tunnels underneath Beijing, built in the Cold War as a nuclear bomb shelter, fitted with facilities such as schools, clinics, factories and even an ice rink.
	Villaggio Mall	A Qatari shopping mall built to resemble an Italian town, with Venetian canals and gondolas. Also notorious for being the site of a deadly nursery fire in 2012.
	Wonderland Amusement Park	The largest abandoned amusement park in Asia.
	X-Seed 4000	The tallest building ever designed, standing 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) tall and housing 500,000 to 1,000,000 people on 800 floors. It is, however, "never meant to be built".
	Yongning Pagoda	A 6th-century pagoda that was possibly the tallest structure in the world until it was destroyed by lightning 18 years after its completion.
	Zhangye National Geopark	A national park known for its mountains with natural multicoloured stripes.
	Zheltuga Republic	An illegal gold mining settlement that developed into a thriving unrecognised country, only surviving because the Chinese government was unaware that it existed.

Europe

	Abode of Chaos	An artist buys an old scenic house in a rural town and transforms it into a replica warzone that serves as an open-air museum of radical avant-garde art, angering locals enough to sue him in France's supreme court.
	Ängelholm UFO memorial	A memorial to a reputed UFO landing in Sweden.
	Argleton	A non-existent town in Lancashire, England that appeared on Google Maps.
	Baarle-Hertog	Two municipalities, one of Belgium and one of the Netherlands, that surround each other twice and many times over. Some houses and shops are in both countries.
	Baarle-Nassau
	Barack Obama Plaza	A motorway service area in County Tipperary, Ireland celebrating the work and Irish heritage of U.S. President Barack Obama.
	Barcelona Supercomputing Center	A supercomputer in a medieval chapel.
	Barentsburg	A completely Russian town, inhabited by Russians, with Russian buildings, supported financially by the Russian government, located in Norway.
	Barra Airport	An airport that only operates when the tide allows.
	Battersea Power Station tube station	A train station named after a non-train station.
	Beans and Bacon mine	With such little ventilation, visitors may want to avoid any source of ignition. Nearby mines are not to be outdone and have the following names: Mule Spinner, Frogs Hole, Cackle Mackle, and Wanton Legs.
	Berlin Brandenburg Airport	An airport in Berlin whose construction is finished but which is unfinished in other areas. Construction was finished in 2012; however, the opening date was repeatedly pushed back as the fire suppression system was installed incorrectly. It finally opened in October 2020.
	Bielefeld conspiracy	The Bielefeld-Verschwörung tries to hide the horrible truth about a city in Westphalia, Germany that doesn't exist ... well, maybe.
	Brennender Berg	A German coal mine on fire since 1668.
	The Broomway	Perhaps the most dangerous path in the world. Would you join the hundred others who died walking the invisible path?
	Brusio spiral viaduct	The title says it all, really.
	Bucket Lake	A lake that only exists thanks to the wanton misuse of a plastic bucket.
	Bunkers in Albania	Enver Hoxha loved them so much he decided to fill his country with over 173,000 of them.
	Büsingen am Hochrhein	A German town that is fully contained within Switzerland.
	Butt Hole Road	A tiny residential street in the UK that was so infamous for its name that it became a tourist attraction.
	Buzludzha monument	A futurist monument built by the Bulgarian Communist Party that looks like a communist spaceship – especially on the inside.
	Carpatho-Ukraine	The third-shortest-lived state in history (see Benin Republic in Nigeria); it was independent for only 24 hours.
	Cerne Abbas Giant	An indecent chalk man in the English countryside.
	Clachan Bridge	Walk across the Atlantic in just 30 seconds!
	Couto Misto	A de facto independent microstate on the border between Spain and Portugal that existed until the 19th century.
	Crinkley Bottom	An unsuccessful series of three theme parks built across England, devoted to a grotesque and horrifying BBC children's TV character from the 90s. One of them collapsed within four months of opening due to a massive and costly legal dispute with the local council over funding and liquor permits, while the abandoned site of another was demolished after it was used to host illegal raves.
	The Crooked House	A pub along the Staffordshire/Black Country border which was at an angle due to ground subsidence as a result of local mining activity, causing bottles rolled along tables to appear to roll uphill. It was destroyed in suspicious circumstances in August 2023.
	Crooked Forest	A grove of pine trees that are all bent in the same direction just as they emerge from the ground, before going straight back up again as normal. Nobody knows why this is the case.
	Dancing House	Also known as "Ginger and Fred" for its resemblance to a pair of dancers.
	Dartmouth railway station	A train station that has been open since 1864 despite no trains ever stopping there.
	Dumb Woman's Lane	A lane in East Sussex with a humorous name. Spike Milligan used to live there, and Paul McCartney wrote a poem about it.
	Eichener See	A lake in southern Germany that only occasionally contains water.
	Ferdinand Cheval	A postman, who, for thirty-three years, collected stones while making his rounds and used them to build a surreal Palais Idéal ("Ideal Palace") of astonishing proportions and intricate detail.
	Colletto Fava	A 1,500-metre (4,900 ft) hill with a 61-metre (200 ft) stuffed pink bunny on top.
	Ebenezer Place, Wick	The world's shortest street.
	Fallen Monument Park	A Russian park best known for its toppled statues.
	Father Pat Noise plaque	O'Connell Bridge bears a tribute to a priest who was as dearly remembered as he was completely fictional.
	Ferdinandea Island	The island that disappeared. And rose again. And sank again. And rose again. And sank again.
	Flannan Isles Lighthouse	Located on Eilean Mór, this lighthouse to the west of Scotland is the subject of an enduring mystery over the disappearance of its keepers in 1900.
	Forest swastika	A gigantic swastika made of larch trees that went unnoticed for nearly sixty years.
	Fugging, Upper Austria	A village in Austria that used to be called "Fucking", but changed its profane-sounding name after years of torment in the form of stolen road signs (some of which had to be enstoned in concrete) to something that still sounds kind of profane.
	Galešnjak	An island off the coast of Croatia that is naturally shaped like a heart symbol.
	Gammalsvenskby	A Swedish village, populated by Swedes, who speak an ancient Swedish dialect, in Ukraine.
	Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue	A giant artificial palm tree created to remind everyone of the name of the street it's on.
	Gropecunt Lane	A street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages.
	Grūtas Park	Alternatively known as Stalin World, this park answers the little-asked question of "what should we do with all these Soviet-era statues and monuments from our oppressive past?" Won its creator, mushroom magnate Viliumas Malinauskas, the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize.
	Icelandic Phallological Museum	A museum in Iceland solely devoted to the collection of penis specimens and penis-related art.
	JASON reactor	The only nuclear reactor in a 17th-century building.
	Kielce Bus Station	A Polish bus station that was deliberately designed to look like a UFO.
	Kőbánya cellar system	Budapest has an expansive underground complex of beer and wine cellars that is so large it totals around 200,000 square metres (2,200,000 sq ft) in area.
	Krzywy Domek	The most interesting house in Poland.
	Kursdorf	A village that was abandoned after being gradually encircled after a nearby major aiport, resulting in an average sound level of nearly 60 decibels. It earned the title of "the loudest village in Germany".
	Leaning Tower of Suurhusen	Beating the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa by 1.22 degrees.
	List of destroyed landmarks in Spain	Over 60 interesting buildings, including larger castles, royal palaces, leaning towers, city gates which were completely or partially demolished and no longer exist, with their respective articles and images.
	Listenbourg	The European country most Americans can't point out on a map (because it doesn't exist).
	Llandegley International Airport	When is an international airport not an international airport? When it's not an airport at all.
	Llanfairpwllgwyngyll	Or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, if you want to get technical.
	Lupanar	A brothel preserved underneath the ashes of Pompeii, complete with 2000-year-old lewd grafitti.
	Magic Roundabout	Only in the United Kingdom would you find a large roundabout with six mini-roundabouts. (Not to be confused with the "Magic Roundabout"s in Colchester, Swindon or High Wycombe – or, for that matter, this "Magic Roundabout".)
	Manneken Pis	A statue in Brussels depicting a urinating child.
	Märket	A lighthouse built on this island led to a redefinition of the border between Sweden and Finland.
	Metro-2	A purported secret metro line in Moscow.
	Monte Kaolino	A ski resort without snow.
	Mount Athos	An autonomous polity in Greece home to 20 monasteries, notable for being the only political subdivision in the world in which women (as well as female animals) are prohibited from entering for any reason.
	Municipalities of Liechtenstein	The blotchy, angular borders between these divisions seem almost arbitrarily strange. The UAE's are similarly weird.
	Nelson's Pillar	Dublin used to have its own version of Nelson's Column, that ended up serving as a symbol of British imperialism up until the 1960s, when it was blown up by Irish republicans, leading to the creation of several celebratory folk songs.
	Neutral Moresnet	A tiny European region – approximately 1.4 square miles (3.6 km2) – that existed for a century as neutral territory between Germany and Belgium.
	Newhaven Marine railway station	A railway station that was technically open between 2006 and 2020, despite (a) no passenger trains serving the station during that time, (b) an inability to buy tickets to the station and (c) the station itself being demolished in 2017.
	Other World Kingdom	A micronation and BDSM resort whose ultimate goal is "absolute matriarchy" – for all men to be enslaved by women.
	Paradiskullen	A ski jumping hill with a landing area that goes under one of Sweden's busiest railroads.
	Pheasant Island	An uninhabited river island which switches sovereignty between France and Spain every six months.
	Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station	An unassuming military station in France became a cause célèbre after French Intelligence tried to threaten Wikipedia into deleting its article on it.
	Principality of Sealand	A micronation located 6 miles (9.7 km) off the coast of Suffolk, England whose population rarely exceeds ten.
	Reality Checkpoint	A lamppost with its own name.
	Röstigraben	The "Coarsely Grated Potato Ditch" in Switzerland, dividing Swiss-German and Swiss-French cuisine.
	Saatse Boot	A piece of Russian territory through which a 900-metre (3,000 ft) stretch of Estonian road passes. Although people are allowed to drive on the road without a permit or visa, it is prohibited to travel on foot, or to stop the vehicle for any reason.
	Schwerbelastungskörper	A piece of Nazi architecture in Berlin, built with the sole purpose of being heavy.
	Scottish Court in the Netherlands	A former Dutch NATO base called Camp Zeist was briefly ceded to Scotland to enable the trial of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombers.
	Sedlec Ossuary	A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people.
	Sexi (Phoenician colony)	An ancient ruins, also known as Sex or Ex, with several Roman-era suburbs, including Pænis, Socordia and Villa Fatuus Maximus.
	Shell Grotto, Margate	A grotto with a mosaic of 4.6 million seashells, hidden underneath a backyard. Nobody knows who built it, when, or for what purpose.
	Shit Museum	Don't worry, it's actually a good museum. For looking at excrement.
	Shitterton	Its sign got stolen so often, they bought a 1.5 tonne stone with the town's name engraved in it. (Surprisingly, that rude name really does mean what you'd think.)
	Smallest House in Great Britain	Only 5.49 square metres (59.1 sq ft) in size, in North Wales.
	Sovereign Military Order of Malta	A sovereign state with no land? How is that possible?
	Spreuerhofstraße	The world's narrowest street.
	Svalbard Global Seed Vault	If a global famine occurs, you better hope you live in Svalbard.
	Transnistria	An unrecognized state that broke away from Moldova during the fall of the Soviet Union due to ethnic tensions and has remained in limbo ever since, retaining Soviet-era aesthetics and even a hammer and sickle on its flag.
	Uffington White Horse	A giant chalk figure that has to be hit with hammers regularly to maintain it.
	Unst Bus Shelter	The only of its kind on the island of Unst, Shetland. It is periodically refurnished and contains a sofa and TV.
	Uppland Runic Inscription 53	An 11th century runestone which got accidental fame by being scavenged for the foundation of a 17th century building in the middle of Stockholm.
	Vatican Railway	It consists of a 680-metre (2,230 ft) branch line and was constructed as a direct result of the Vatican's recognition as a country.
	Vennbahn	A disused railway in Belgium which separates five pieces of Germany from the rest of Germany.
	Veyshnoria	A nonexistent border country of Belarus invented for a Union State military exercise and adopted by the Internet. It's totally coincidental that the territory of this "enemy state" corresponds to the most Catholic, most anti-Lukashenko, and least Russian-speaking regions of Belarus, honest.
	Victor Noir	A young journalist killed by the cousin of the French Emperor, who subsequently became a symbol of resistance prior to the fall of the regime... who also got a statue of himself with a massive bulge in his crotch that subsequently became a fertility symbol, with the bulge becoming rusted due to having been fondled by so many members of the public.
	Weißwurstäquator	The "White Sausage Equator" in Germany.
	White's	London's oldest and most famous gentleman's club had several famous people as members, including King Charles III, Prince William, former prime minister David Cameron and so on. The club is pretty much top secret, so yes, the English illuminati definitely aren't lurking and drinking tea there. Also, no girls are allowed.
	Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate	And the best street name has to go to this street in York, England. Also said to be the shortest street in the city too!
	Wooden Spoons Museum	A museum with the largest collection of wooden spoons in the world, ranging from 3,500 to over 6,000. Ladles and 500 erasers can also be found!
	Wrocław's dwarfs	Gotta catch 'em all!
	Zeitpyramide	To celebrate the 1200th anniversary of a Bavarian town, one artist decided to stack concrete blocks for 1200 years. The next block is scheduled for 2033.
	Željava Air Base	An abandoned air base, located on the border between Croatia and Bosnia, that's almost entirely underground.
	Zone rouge	A series of areas in northeastern France that were so devastated by unexploded ordinance and toxins during World War I that they remain unihabitable a century later.

Latin America and the Caribbean

	Americana, São Paulo	A town in Brazil founded by Confederate farmers and soldiers in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
	Cancún Underwater Museum	A place where works of art are kept several metres beneath sea level.
	Cherán	A Mexican town where the residents decided to abolish their own local government and police force in 2011 due to rampant corruption and ties to organized crime. They don't appear to have any regrets.
	Colonia Dignidad	A rural community in Chile that has a story that not even the most insane writer could think of.
	Darién Gap	This journey is impossible with the modes you have selected.
	Devil's Island	A notorious penal colony off the coast of French Guiana.
	Ernst Thälmann Island	An island off the coast of Cuba that was (sort of) ceded to East Germany and thus (sort of) remains part of East Germany, which doesn't exist anymore (sort of).
	Guarapari	A Brazilian town with beaches that are naturally radioactive.
	The Guianas	If you think about it, three extremely sparsely-populated South American nations that are culturally part of the Caribbean, with a population of Amerindians, Indians, Africans, Maroons, mixed-race Indo-Africans, Javanese, Chinese, Hmongs, Portuguese, Lebanese, Haitians, and Brazilians, is pretty weird.
	Fordlândia	The man himself was not without his abject failures in Brazil.
	Friendship Park (San Diego–Tijuana)	Where people can shake hands and interact across the Mexico–United States border.
	Hacienda Nápoles	The luxurious estate of the deceased drug lord Pablo Escobar that may lead to an invasive hippopotamus population in Colombia.
	Isla Apipé	An Argentine island in the Paraná River surrounded by Paraguayan waters.
	Island of the Dolls	Located in Mexico City, this is an island full of broken and deteriorated dolls of various styles and colors, originally placed by the former owner of the island.
	John Lennon Park	A park with a statue of John Lennon, in a country that used to ban his music in the 60s as it was a Western bloc cultural import. Also noteworthy for the fact that his statue doesn't normally wear glasses, as the glasses on the statue keep getting removed or vandalized, although the park now has a security guard whose job is to hang around near the statue and give him a pair of glasses upon request.
	Lençóis Maranhenses National Park	Wait, deserts don't seasonally flood. They just don't. Or do they?
	Nazca Lines	A line museum, exhibited outdoors in southern Peru.
	El Ojo	An almost perfectly circular, constantly rotating island in the marshes of Argentina. Its name is Spanish for "The Eye".
	Parícutin	A volcano that suddenly erupted out of a farmer's cornfield.
	Pig Beach	A place where you can swim with pigs.
	Plymouth, Montserrat	A national capital with zero population, as it was abandoned due to a volcanic eruption.
	Río Rico, Tamaulipas	A city that was ceded by the United States to Mexico in 1977 due to an earlier diversion of the Rio Grande.
	Santa Cruz del Islote	A tiny artifical island off the coast of Colombia that is said to be the most crowded island on Earth, with its own school, restaurant and other amenities, but without any crime nor police.
	Spiral Island	An artificial island, now destroyed, built from thousands of empty floating plastic bottles.
	Y Wladfa	A group of settlements in Argentine Patagonia home to the largest Welsh-speaking population outside of the British Isles, and the location of the Patagonian Welsh dialect.
	Yungas Road	An incredibly deadly mountainside road in Bolivia, only 3 meters wide in places and with no guardrails.

North America

	11 foot 8+8 Bridge	Also known has the "Can Opener", this is a bridge that slices the roof off of trucks that have fallen victim to it.
	33 Thomas Street	A windowless skyscraper in New York and suspected NSA mass surveillance hub. Not suspicious at all.
	A Mountain	Also known as Sentinel Peak, this hill in Tucson, Arizona literally has a big letter "A" on it.
	Agloe, New York	A fictional town in New York. Originally a phantom settlement, created as a copyright trap for a mapmaker, that ended up developing into an actual landmark.
	Alcohol and Drug Abuse Lake	Supposedly named after the treatment center nearby.
	Aroma of Tacoma	"What an incredible smell you've discovered" could have been this Washington city's motto.
	Aquarius Reef Base	A real-live underwater laboratory.
	Badlands Guardian	A natural topographic feature in Alberta, Canada, which, when viewed from above, looks remarkably like a human wearing a Native American headdress and earbuds.
	Beatosu and Goblu	Two non-existent towns that appeared on Michigan's official highway map as a reference to the University of Michigan and its rival, Ohio State University.
	Borscht Belt	For those who love borscht and find the Bible Belt and Rust Belt too boring.
	Big Blue Bug	Officially named Nibbles Woodaway, this 58-foot long termite overlooking I-95 is a Providence landmark and is claimed to be the world's largest artificial bug.
	Bishop Castle	A rocky castle in the Rocky Mountains! This fire-breathing construction project seems to endlessly... drag on.
	Bubblegum Alley	70 feet of alleyway with its walls covered in used chewing gum.
	Bubbly Creek	The branch of the Chicago River that was so contaminated with blood from the Stock Yards that it gained this appetizing moniker.
	Bullfrog County, Nevada	A former county in Nevada established around a mountain which was to become a radioactive waste disposal site. As of 2022, it is the only uninhabited county-equivalent to ever be created in the United States.
	Busta Rhymes Island	Otherwise unnamed island because it had "rope-swinging, blueberries, and ... stuff Busta would enjoy."
	Canusa Street	A road that's in both Canada and USA.
	Capitol Hill mystery soda machine	A machine that offered rare drinks with nobody knowing who operated it. It was in operation from the 1990s to 2018, when it disappeared and a note was left saying: "Went for a walk".
	Cat Girl Manor	A manor described as "the Playboy Mansion of the kitten play community".
	Centralia, Pennsylvania	A town that's been on fire since 1962.
	Clinton Road (New Jersey)	In addition to having the longest traffic light in the country, the road is also notorious for reported occurrences of paranormal activity.
	Colma, California	A town where the dead outnumber the living by 1000 to 1.
	Conch Republic	As a protest against the actions by the United States federal government, Key West in Florida seceded from and then declared war on the United States, surrendered one minute later and then applied for $1 billion in foreign aid.
	Corporation Trust Center	A small single-story building where over 285,000 companies, or over 15% of all companies in the United States, are legally based.
	Crush, Texas	A temporary "city" established as the site of an 1896 publicity stunt, a staged train wreck. The wreck unexpectedly caused two deaths and numerous injuries among spectators.
	Crazy Horse Memorial	The Native American answer to Mount Rushmore, started in 1948 and still nowhere near completed.
	Cuyahoga River	Environmentalism in the United States essentially started because a river in Cleveland kept on catching fire.
	Dave Thomas Circle	A six-way intersection in Northeast D.C. with a Wendy's restaurant located in the middle until 2021. The site of numerous traffic fatalities, it's currently being converted into a city park.
	Dixie Square Mall	A shopping mall that stood abandoned for over twice as long as it was in business until it was finally demolished in 2012. It was featured in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers and became a popular target for urban explorers.
	Donald J. Trump State Park	The most tremendous, fantastic, amazing state park you've ever seen. The media wants to say it has poor upkeep, it should be renamed, that it's not even a real state park; but they're all liars and very bad people, believe me.
	Dorset, Minnesota	A town that, on multiple occasions, has had a child as their "mayor".
	Dude Chilling Park	Originally a sign placed in a Vancouver park as a prank, now officially recognized public art.
	Fenelon Place Elevator	The shortest and steepest railroad in the world, (supposedly) located in a town of around 60,000 people.
	Florence Y'all Water Tower	A Northern Kentucky town's unique "welcome" sign.
	List of former counties, cities, and towns of Virginia	All the places that are no longer found in Virginia, such as Illinois County, and a few that never were (including Walton's Mountain).
	Gann Valley, South Dakota	The county seat of Buffalo County, South Dakota, despite nearby Fort Thompson having a population more than 120 times larger than Gann Valley.
	Greater Green River Intergalactic Spaceport	Consists entirely of a deeply rutted unmanned strip of soil/gravel and a windsock.
	Gum Wall	A brick wall in Seattle burdened by chewing gum. Cleaned in 2015, only to be turned into a memorial for Paris.
	Habitat 67	A futuristic residential complex built in the 1960s that resembles a mass of cuboids haphazardly balanced on top of each other.
	Hans Island	A deserted Arctic island fought over by Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark for decades. The 2022 settlement created a land border between a North American and a European country.
	Hawaii 2	A quaint island in Maine purchased by Cards Against Humanity in 2014.
	Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump	Life lesson: if you see hunters chasing buffalo off a cliff, don't stand at the bottom.
	Hess triangle	This used to be part of a bigger plot of land but a road destroyed it but the planners couldn't plan correctly so it left this piece of land.
	Horace Burgess's Treehouse	A tree house built by a minister who claimed to have received a vision from God.
	Interstate 180 (Wyoming)	An Interstate Highway that isn't really a freeway at all.
	Interstate 19	The only U.S. highway marked in metric units, a relic of a historical push for metrication.
	Island of California	The third-largest U.S. state was formerly an island – at least on paper.
	Jackass Flats	The aptly named test site for the world's first and only nuclear-powered rocket engines.
	Jerimoth Hill	The highest natural point in Rhode Island. For years, one of the toughest highpoints in the U.S. to scale, not because of its 812-foot (247 m) height, but because of an angry old man who lived nearby.
	Just Room Enough Island	This island is about one-thirteenth of an acre in size but that didn't stop the Sizeland family from building a house on it.
	Landsat Island	A lonesome island with a frankly humorous tale.
	List of gaps in Interstate Highways	Traffic-lighted intersections, drawbridges, and other oddities in the Interstate Highway System which violate the standards.
	List of Las Vegas casinos that never opened	What happened on the drawing board stayed on the drawing board.
	London Bridge	An over century year old authentic English bridge...that now resides in the middle of the desert.
	M-185 (Michigan highway)	The only state highway in the country that bans motor vehicles. It's also the only state highway to not have an accident until 2005.
	Mary Ellis grave	A grave that found itself in the middle of a movie theater parking lot.
	Memphis Pyramid	The tenth-largest pyramid in the world, located in Memphis, Tennessee, and home to a Bass Pro Shops megastore.
	Michigan left	Directions are more complicated in Michigan.
	Mickey pylon	A powerline pylon with a shape reminiscent of a certain fictional rodent.
	Mill Ends Park	The smallest park in the world – 452 in2 (0.292 m2) – in Portland, Oregon.
	Mojave phone booth	A public phone booth that stood for several decades in the middle of a desert, miles away from any roads or other structures.
	Mountain Home Air Force Base	A Singaporean air force base in Idaho.
	Mollie's Nipple	The name of multiple places in Utah... including at least one butte.
	Monowi	A village in Nebraska with a population of one. Hi, Elsie!
	Mr. Trash Wheel	A trash interceptor with giant googly eyes that patrols the Baltimore Inner Harbor, consuming trash. Has its own Instagram page.
	Murder Kroger	A supermarket with a dark story.
	Nataqua Territory	A failed U.S. territory that was, quite literally, beside itself.
	National Raisin Reserve	Created after World War II to control raisin prices. Run by the Raisin Administrative Committee, of course.
	Nettilling Lake	Located on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It's the largest lake on an island and also contains the largest lake on an island on a lake on an island, which in turn contains the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.
	Nitt Witt Ridge	A house in California, built out of beer cans, abalone shells, car parts, and other garbage previously tossed out by local residents, is now a historic landmark.
	Northeast Greenland National Park	The world's largest national park consists of over a quarter of Greenland's total land area, is larger than 166 sovereign states, and has no permanent human population.
	Peter Camani	A (now retired) Canadian art teacher who built a massive complex of sculptures of screaming faces on his property in his spare time, and converted his house into a castle with a turret of a screaming face.
	Point Roberts, Washington	When defining international boundaries, sometimes a straight line isn't the best solution.
	Polar Bear Holding Facility	A prison for polar bears.
	Prada Marfa, Texas	For your luxury shopping bug, a Prada store in the desert.
—	Pyramid mausoleums in North America	Arizona Governor George Hunt will hereafter be addressed as "Pharaoh George I".
	Rabbit Hash, Kentucky	A town whose mayors, since 1998, have all been dogs.
	Raising of Chicago	During the 1850s, the city was raised on jacks, building by building.
	Rainbow Farm	The only place where gay married couples could guard their marijuana plants with guns. Notably visited by Merle Haggard and Tommy Chong.
	Republic of Indian Stream	An area of land in northern New Hampshire that was an independent country from 1832 to 1835.
	Republic of Molossia	A 34-person micronation in Nevada which takes the meaning of the phrase "a man's home is his castle" to new extremes.
	Rock N Roll McDonald's	A rock 'n roll-themed McDonald's restaurant located in Chicago, famous for being the subject of a song by outsider musician Wesley Willis.
	Rough and Ready, California	This mining town seceded from the Union in 1850, but came back three months later because they realised they couldn't celebrate Independence Day.
	Santa Claus, Arizona	In Mohave County, visit an abandoned tourist trap deep in the desert where Santa Claus, of all people, allegedly resides!
	Sam Kee Building	Known as the world's narrowest commercial building.
	Slab City, California	A massive off-the-grid trailer park on a former military base in the Sonoran Desert, that became a large-scale alternative community of misfits and wanderers that has persisted for decades, complete with various displays of colourful experimental sculptures made from whatever the residents can get their hands on.
	S.N.P.J., Pennsylvania	A municipality consisting solely of a Slovenian fraternity's recreation center, established (in part) to get around liquor laws.
	State of Franklin	A proposed state in Eastern Tennessee that tried its hand at independence and fell into debt to Spain.
	State of Scott	Scott County in northern Tennessee seceded and formed its own state in opposition to Tennessee joining the Confederacy. It remained this way for over a century until it rejoined Tennessee in 1986.
	Statue of Lenin (Seattle)	How a statue of Lenin made its way from Czechoslovakia to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.
	Texas State Highway 165	The only state highway in the country specifically designated to serve a cemetery...and nothing more. It's also the only state highway in the country to be partially closed every night.
	Track 61 (New York City)	A secret train platform located below the Waldorf Astoria New York designed for use by U.S. Presidents when they would visit the hotel.
	U Thant Island	An island in the East River with a surprisingly in-depth history for only being 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in area.
	U.S. Route 19 Truck (Pittsburgh)	A road in Pittsburgh that features a number of wrong way concurrencies, including one with itself.
	Truth or Consequences, New Mexico	A New Mexico town that chose to rename itself after the Truth or Consequences game show in 1950, then never bothered changing back.
	War of the Roses	The historical rivalry between Lancaster and York. Not to be confused with Wars of the Roses, the historical rivalry between Lancaster and York.
	Weather Station Kurt	That time when the Nazis landed in North America.
	Wedge	It's harder than you think to construct the state of Delaware with a ruler and compass.
	Whittier, Alaska	A city in Alaska where (almost) all of its residents live in one building: Begich Towers.
	Winchester Mystery House	A house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles.
	World's littlest skyscraper	The result of a fraudulent investment scheme, it's a four-story brick building constructed in 1920 in downtown Wichita Falls, Texas that has only one room on each of its four floors.
	Zilwaukee, Michigan	"Is this Milwaukee?" "Uh...yeah, it sure is!"
	Zone of Death	The part of Yellowstone National Park in Idaho, where any crime can technically be committed without punishment – but don't tempt fate!

Oceania

	American Samoa	Despite having a functional legislature (the Fono) and a population of 46,366, American Samoa is considered an 'unincorporated unorganized' territory. It is also the only U.S. territory where people are not automatically born citizens, despite much of the population being involved in the military.
	Baldwin Street	A short suburban road in Dunedin, New Zealand, reputedly the world's steepest street.
	Ball's Pyramid	A nearly 600-metre-tall (2,000 ft) stone stack in the middle of the ocean.
	Banjawarn Station	Did a Japanese apocalypse cult test a nuke in the middle of rural Australia?
	Bayswater Subway	Bridge in Perth that has been hit by trucks 50 times between 2014 and 2020.
	Burning Mountain	A straightforwardly named mountain that has been on fire for over 6000 years.
	Cardrona Bra Fence	An eccentric tourist attraction in New Zealand.
	Coober Pedy	A mining town where most of the residents live underground.
	Concrete bus shelters in Canberra	These brutalist cylindrical bus shelters are an icon of Australia's capital city.
	Egmont National Park	This national park's boundaries created a circular forest.
	Horizontal Falls	This pair of Australian "waterfalls" appear to be falling straight across the land.
	Hundertwasser Toilets	Why the town of Kawakawa is the world's best place for a rest stop.
	Hunga Tonga	An island that was created in 2015 after a volcano erupted between two islands and connected them until another volcanic explosion in 2022 split them up again.
	Jellyfish Lake	A lake where jellyfish have evolved without stingers due to a lack of predators.
	Jervis Bay Territory	Briefly ceded to the ACT to give it access to the sea despite not bordering the ACT.
	Kalawao County, Hawaii	The second-least populous county in the United States (after Loving County, Texas), with a population of 90 as of the 2010 United States Census. Established as a leper colony in 1866, it occupies a peninsula on Molokai and is not connected by road to the rest of the island.
	Kingman Reef	It's designated as its own US overseas territory despite having an area of only 0.03 square kilometres (0.012 sq mi) and being almost entirely underwater during low tide.
	Macquarie Island	The only place on earth where rocks from the Earth's mantle get exposed to the surface.
	Montague Street Bridge	A bridge in Melbourne that has had so many trucks crash into it and get stuck under it, the government used millions of dollars to install prevention measures (it did nothing).
	Mount Wycheproof	Considered a mountain when only 43 metres (141 ft) above surrounding terrain and 143 metres (469 ft) above sea level. There are parts of Sydney which have a higher elevation and are not considered a mountain.
	Murray Valley Highway	A 671-kilometre (417 mi) road that has a road route number of B400 for 668 kilometres (415 mi) in the Victorian section and unmarked for 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in the New South Wales section making the Victorian road network not connected to the New South Wales Network in that area.
	Nelson–Blenheim notional railway	A road that was officially considered to be a railway by the New Zealand Government for 22 years.
	New Zealand State Highway 78	A road in Timaru, New Zealand, that is designated a highway despite being only 900 metres (3,000 ft) long.
	Ninety Mile Beach	A 55-mile beach.
	Octopolis and Octlantis	A pair of settlements built by octopuses, discovered on the seabed off the coast of the aforementioned Jervis Bay.
	Palmyra Atoll	The United States' only 'incorporated unorganized' territory, despite there being no government and virtually no permanent residents for the Constitution to apply to...
	Pitcairn Islands	A British Overseas Territory where the entire population is Seventh-day Adventist and descended from the mutineers from the HMS Bounty. The entire population moved to Norfolk Island for three years in the 1850s and is currently at risk of going extinct due to the high number of emigrants. Also the site of a scandal where 13 Pitcairn Islands men, almost a third of the islands' population, were convicted in a sex abuse scandal, giving the islands the highest rate of sex offenders in the world.
	Pink Lake	A lake that is naturally pink, but suddenly turned blue in 2010.
	Princes Freeway (east)	A freeway with houses, traffic lights, and a 60-kilometre-per-hour (37 mph) limit in some areas. What are VicRoads thinking?
	Carstensz Pyramid	The tallest mountain in Australia is administrated by the Republic of Indonesia.
	Sandy Island	An island which was shown on Google Maps satellite view until 2012 despite not existing.
	That Wānaka Tree	A tree named after a hashtag on Instagram.
	Taumata	With a full name consisting of 85 characters, this hill may be the longest place name in the world.
	Te Urewera	A forested area in New Zealand that is also a legal person (see below).
	Whanganui River	A river in New Zealand that is legally a person.
	Wedding Cake Rock	A rock that looks exactly like a wedding cake.
	Whangamōmona	A township in New Zealand that also happens to be a self-declared republic, whose past presidents include a goat and a poodle.

Pre-modern

Burned house horizon	The horizon which consumed cultures in the Balkans and around the Black Sea.
Cadaver Synod	A deceased Pope was exhumed and put on trial!
Cagots	A group that were a persecuted minority in France and Spain into the 20th century, and nobody really knows why.
Complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir	The progenitor of the one-star Yelp review is a gripe about poor-quality copper.
Criterion of embarrassment	You know it's true because it's too embarrassing for anyone to have made it up.
Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei	A disputed first female monarch of Chinese history before Wu Zetian, whom the Empress Dowager Hu declared was a boy and was emperor for a day before being replaced by another infant.
Elagabalus	The number one Syrian teenage sun cultist polygamist possibly-transgender Roman emperor!
Erfurt latrine disaster	It's incredible how quickly someone's life can go to shit.
House of Colleoni	A former Italian noble family whose arms included three pairs of testicles.
John the Posthumous	King of France from the minute he was born to the minute he died (total: 5 days).
Kottabos	The world's first drinking game. Care to play? All you need is a bronze "lamp stand" with a tiny statuette on top and some wine.
Máel Brigte of Moray	A Pictish nobleman who somehow managed to bite a man to death despite being long-dead himself.
Nika riots	Kind of like football hooliganism, except for chariot racing, and also if it resulted in tens of thousands dead, half of Constantinople being burnt to the ground and the Emperor nearly being lynched.
Onfim	A 7 year-old medieval Russian boy whose homework tablets, complete with doodles of himself as a "wild beast", were preserved for 700 years before being excavated and becoming a primary source for life in the Novgorod Republic.
Phantom time conspiracy theory	What if I tell you that almost 300 years of history were fabricated?
Pope Benedict IX	He became pope at twenty, and later sold the papacy. He was pope three times.
Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories	Native Americans are among the Ten Lost Tribes? The Zuni are related to Japanese peasants? This and more wild theories are found here.
Publius Afranius Potitus	If you're going to say you'd trade your life for your sick emperor's, make sure he doesn't get better.
Roland The Farter	If only we were all a jump, whistle & fart away from posterity!
Sacred Band of Thebes	An elite fighting force consisting of a hand-picked groups of 150 pairs of male lovers.
Sino-Roman relations	These empires inched progressively closer to each other in the course of the Roman expansion into the ancient Near East and of the simultaneous Han Chinese military incursions into Central Asia. Mutual awareness remained low, and firm knowledge about each other was limited.

Early modern

Affair of the Sausages	One of the major events of the early Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was a religious dispute on wherever sausages could be eaten during Lent.
Architecture terrible	An architectural style advocated by French architect Jacques-François Blondel.
Charles II of Spain	The last Habsburg King of Spain, who was so severely inbred that he could barely rule his nation due to his constant health problems. Upon his death, his autopsy revealed internal organs so withered and atrophied that witchcraft was actually suspected.
Curonian colonisation	A Latvian duchy's little-known colonial empire, consisting of bits of land along the Gambia River and the island of Tobago.
Dancing plague of 1518	In 1518, around 400 people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, some of those affected died of heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.
Darien scheme	An attempt to colonize the inhospitable Darién Gap, backed by the Kingdom of Scotland. The failure of the colony ruined the Scottish economy, and may have lead to the Union of England and Scotland.
Defenestrations of Prague	When was the last time throwing someone out of a window started a war?
Timothy Dexter	Genius businessman or loony?
False Dmitry	A weird phenomenon in Russian history for all the fake kings that they once had. One, in reality, did become a ruler.
Glass delusion	Believing oneself to be made of glass was quite in vogue among Renaissance-era European nobility.
Gilles de Rais	Friend of Joan of Arc, and convicted serial killer.
Loveday	Can holding hands and going to church end a civil war? Turns out: no.
Makassan contact with Australia	Over a century before Europeans made contact with Australia, Makassarese people from Sulawesi seeking sea cucumbers traded with the Aboriginal Australians of Kimberley and Arnhem land, bringing Islamic and Indonesian influence to the local culture, art, language, and lifestyle.
The Miracle of 1511	When the people of Brussels protested against their rulers by building satirical and pornographic snowmen.
Mutiny on the Bounty	The true story starting with a stern captain and a lustful crew on a Royal Navy ship and ending with the British-Polynesian Seventh-day Adventist culture of the Pitcairn Islands. Plenty of drama in-between.
Order of the Pug	A fraternal order that existed for Roman Catholics in Bavaria in the 18th century.
George Psalmanazar	A Frenchman who was so successful in convincing 18th-century Britain he was a Taiwanese man, that he wrote an elaborate and blatantly fictitious history of the island.
Crown Prince Sado	To prevent him from becoming the new monarch of Joseon Korea, his father, the king, locked him in a rice chest for eight days, killing him through dehydration.
Yasuke	An African man who ended up becoming a retainer for Oda Nobunaga, one of Japan's most important feudal lords, in 1581.

19th century

Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address	What happens when you start your important new job fortified by three full glasses of straight whiskey, filled to the brim, after spending the week leading up to it in (more or less) a drunken stupor.
Kinjirō Ashiwara	Emperor of Japan, but only in his own mind.
John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland	A reclusive English nobleman who built a vast maze under his home.
Confederados	A small group of white Brazilians with roots in the southern United States.
Drapetomania	"Those slaves want to be free? They must be mentally ill!"
Dublin whiskey fire	In 1875, a whiskey brewery warehouse in Dublin caught fire leading to the deaths of 13 people—not from the fire, but from alcohol poisoning as they drank free, undiluted whiskey from the streets.
Johann Georg August Galletti	The early-19th-century master of the bizarre turn of phrase.
Great Moon Hoax	An infamous article by The Sun that claimed that animals such as unicorns and bat-winged humans were found living on the moon.
Great Stink	A London summer so smelly it prompted government action.
Charles J. Guiteau	The strangest man to ever assassinate a US President. Highlight: the self-penned poem from the point of view of a child that he wrote for his execution.
History of Liberia	Probably the most interesting history that many historians don't study.
Jerome of Sandy Cove	A man, unable to speak any language known to locals, was discovered on the beaches of Nova Scotia in 1861 with his legs cut off. He lived for fifty more years, but remains unidentified to this day.
Kentucky meat shower	Not as sexy as you'd imagine it to be.
Knights of the Golden Circle	A secret society of American slave masters that planned to invade lands in Latin America to spread their pro-slavery views.
London Beer Flood	Nine people drowned by a flood of over 300,000 gallons of beer.
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême	King of France for 20 minutes.
Gregor MacGregor	That's his real name. Possibly the only honest thing about him.
Nongqawuse	During (and likely because of) colonization, a Xhosa teenager became an apocalyptic prophetess, ordering the Xhosa to destroy their own crops and livestock—which they did.
Heinrich Schliemann	A pioneer of archaeology, but not for good reasons.
William Walker	Trying to create new slave-holding colonies, he became president of Nicaragua for a year and inspired Latin America to come together for the first time (to oust him).

20th century

21st century

−0	Zero has a negative flavor in the worlds of computing, experimental science and statistical mechanics.
0.999...	An infinitely long way to write 1.
2 + 2 = 5	...or perhaps it equals 1984...
616 (number)	The real number of the beast?
65537-gon	This many-sided polygon can be constructed with a compass and straight edge... but then again, so can a circle, and it's not like you'd notice the 15 parts per billion of difference.
All horses are the same color	Flawed mathematical induction proof that all horses are the same color.
Almost everywhere	Does not refer to advertising or corrupt corporate practices, but is instead a term in measure theory.
Almost integer	By a strange coincidence, ${\displaystyle e^{\pi }-\pi \approx 20}$ - and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Almost periodic function	Well, at least they tried.
Banach–Tarski paradox	Tutorial to make two spheres from one.
Belphegor's prime	1 followed by 13 zeros followed by 666 followed by 13 zeros followed by 1.
Bertrand's postulate	Despite now being a theorem, still conventionally called a postulate.
Calculator spelling	5318008!
The Complexity of Songs	A treatise on the computational complexity of songs by venerable computer scientist Donald Knuth.
Cox–Zucker machine	This machine does what?!
Erdős–Bacon number	A combination of the degrees of separation from actor Kevin Bacon and mathematician Paul Erdős.
Extravagant number	Don't take it shopping. Not very friendly with the frugal number either.
Gabriel's horn	A geometric figure with an infinite surface area but finite volume. So even if the horn was filled with paint, you could never paint its surface.
Graham's number	A number so large that the observable universe is not big enough to write it in full in decimal notation or even scientific notation.
Hairy ball theorem	Seriously... Couldn't you come up with a better name?!
Happy number	Not just a cheery song on the radio.
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel	A fully occupied hotel cannot accommodate any more guests. Or can it? Or, once it can, can it not?
Illegal number	Does the US government forbid knowledge of the existence of certain numbers?
Illumination Problem	A room with a bit of a shadow.
Indiana Pi Bill	A notorious attempt to legislate the value of pi as 3.2.
Infinite monkey theorem	An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will (almost surely) produce all possible written texts.
Interesting number paradox	Either all natural numbers are interesting or else none of them are.
Legendre's constant	After 91 years and much effort, this legendary constant was found to be ... 1. Just 1.
Look-and-say sequence	Also known as the Cuckoo's Egg.
Mathematical fallacy	Trying to prove that 2 = 1 or that 1 < 0.
Mathematical joke	Complex numbers are all fun and games until someone loses an i. That's when things get real.
Minkowski's question-mark function	A function with an unusual notation and possessing unusual fractal properties.
Monty Hall problem	The counter-intuitive way to prevail when playing Let's Make a Deal.
Moving sofa problem	What is the largest area of a sofa that can be manoeuvred through an L-shaped corner?
Narcissistic number	The pluperfect digital invariant says "Count me in"!
Nothing-up-my-sleeve number	A number which is "above suspicion".
Number of the beast	For beastly people bored of the number of unluckiness.
Numbers station	[Six bars of The Lincolnshire Poacher play]  "¡Atención! ¡Atención! One, four, seventeen, twenty-four..."
Pi is 3	Did Japanese education guidelines shockingly redefine pi as exactly 3? No, they didn't, but where's the news story and public outcry in that?
Pointless topology	Not as useless as it sounds.
Potato paradox	If potatoes consisting of 99% water dry so that they are 98% water, they lose 50% of their weight.
Ramanujan summation	What do you get when you add all positive integers, up to infinity? You get a negative fraction.
Schizophrenic number	Can numbers have mental disorders?
Sexy prime	Prime numbers that differ from each other by sex. Er... six.
Six nines in pi	A mathematical coincidence, the sequence "999999" appears a mere 762 digits into the decimal expansion of pi.
Tarski's circle-squaring problem	How to square the circle for real.
Spaghetti sort	An algorithm for sorting rods of spaghetti.
Squircle	Not quite a square, not quite a circle, definitely not a Pokémon either.
Taxicab number	Never tell a Numberphile that a number is uninteresting.
Tetraphobia	Sometimes found in conjunction with triskaidekaphobia (see below) in East Asian cultures. More prevalent in Japan, where 49 is associated with "suffering until death".
Titanic prime	Surprisingly, not discovered by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Tits group	The perfect sporadic group doesn't exi-
Triskaidekaphobia	No, it's not related to the Code of Hammurabi. No, it's not always considered unlucky. Yes, space exploration has been touched by it.
Tupper's self-referential formula	A formula that draws itself!
Ulam spiral	A bored mathematician discovers an unusual numerical pattern while doodling.
Umbral calculus	A mathematical method successfully used for over 100 years, despite the notable limitation of no one on Earth knowing exactly how or why it worked.
Unexpected hanging paradox	If you're told you'll be hanged on a day you'll never expect it, you can prove logically that there's no day you can be hanged at all. Which, of course, means you won't expect it when the hanging does happen as planned.
Vacuous truth	All pigs with wings speak Chinese.
Vampire number	Integers with real bite; some even have multiple pairs of fangs.
Will Rogers phenomenon	When moving an element from one set to another set raises – counter-intuitively – the average values of both sets. Also known as the Will Rogers paradox.
Zenzizenzizenzic	You know how x3 is called "x cubed"? Well, x8 is called...
Zeroth	An ordinal number popular in computing and related cultures.

Dates and timekeeping

-ussy	Yes, it means what you think it does.
2002 renaming of Turkmen months and days of week	For almost six years, the months and days of the week in the Turkmen language had their names changed at the order of Turkmenistan's despotic President for Life.
Académie de la Carpette anglaise	A satirical French organisation that awards prizes to "members of the French élite who distinguish themselves by relentlessly promoting the domination of the English language over the French language in France and in European institutions".
Antiqua–Fraktur dispute	A dispute over which typeface was more "German". At first, the Nazis were for Fraktur...
Apples and oranges	According to scholars, comparing the two may be easier than previously thought.
Belarusian Arabic alphabet	Turns out, a Slavic-based language can also be written in the Arabic script.
A Book from the Sky	A must-see for connoisseurs of gibberish.
Bouba/kiki effect	You instinctively know exactly which is which, no matter what language you speak.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo	A meaningful, grammatical construction that has inspired linguists to talk about bullying amongst Western New York's bison population.
The Chaos	The poem that mocks English spelling and pronunciation. Try to read it out loud!
Chinese characters of Empress Wu	Ever needed to be taken seriously so hard that you invented completely new characters and forced people to use them?
Chinese word for "crisis"	More notable among Americans than among the Chinese, apparently.
Codex Seraphinianus	A made-up enigmatic text released in 1981.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously	A sentence contrived by Noam Chomsky to demonstrate that a sentence can be grammatical yet nonsensical.
Comparative illusion	More people have researched these nonsensical sentences than I have. [sic]
Controversies about the word niggardly	How a simple word can cause so much controversy.
Crazy English	"Li Yang's unconventional method of teaching English includes screaming popular and random English phrases at a rapid pace and occasionally, involves hand movements in patterns that reflect the word's pronunciation."
Cryptophasia	The secret language of identical twins, also called idioglossia.
Disambiguation (disambiguation)	Sometimes people do dumb things.
Dord	A nonexistent English word, supposedly meaning "density", which was listed in the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary from 1935 to 1939.
The Dozens	A usually good-natured African American game in which two competitors, usually male, exchange trash-talk until one has no comeback.
Duck test	A humorous abductive reasoning test based on the activities of a duck.
English as She Is Spoke	A 19th century Portuguese-English phrasebook that became legendary for its overtly literal and inaccurate translations.
Engrish	Attempts by East Asian people – especially the Japanese – to construct English words and phrases.
Eskimo words for snow	The claim that Eskimo languages have an unusually large number of words for "snow".
Etaoin shrdlu	Cryptic echoes from the days of hot metal typesetting.
Faggin–Nazzi alphabet	What? That's its real name. What did you think it was about?
Faux Cyrillic	Give text some of that Яussiaи flavour.
Fictitious entry	The content may be fictitious, but the entry is a fact.
Fnord	Deliberately misleading, irrelevant or false information meant to suggest conspiracy. A popular word among Discordians.
Garden-path sentence	A sentence that doesn't seem grammatically correct, but that's because it tricks you into thinking the verb isn't where it is. It's very easy to catch yourself doing double takes when reading this article.
Ghoti	As good an argument as any for English-language spelling reform.
Glossary of Wobbly terms	Would you see the beanmaster fry a couple eggs on the banjo?
Hamburgevons	Literally all you need to know if a typeface is any good.
Hopi time controversy	A long-lived academic debate about the concept of time in the Hopi language.
How now brown cow	A way to greet those well-versed in rhetoric.
Hyphen War	A dash between communism and independence.
Ingressive sound	In many languages and dialects around the world, a loud inhalation means "yes".
Inherently funny word	Some influential comedians have long regarded certain words in the English language as humorous because of their sound or resemblance to other words. Poodle, wankel, ni...
Intentionally blank page	The self-refuting meta-reference that is "This page intentionally left blank".
Irony punctuation	Is your irony too subtle?
Irreversible binomial	Or, why it's fish and chips and not chips and fish.
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher	Repetition gone wrong.
Latin profanity	Latin for the profane.
Law of holes	If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!
La plume de ma tante (phrase)	One of the first phrases stereotypicaly learned in French, and one of the least likely to ever actually be used.
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den	A 92-character poem written in Classical Chinese, in which every syllable has the sound "shi" (in different tones) when read in modern Mandarin Chinese.
List of common false etymologies of English words	Believe it or not, "crap" did not originate from Thomas Crapper.
List of English words containing Q not followed by U	A Scrabbler's dream article.
List of English words without rhymes	Does anything rhyme with orange? Or silver?
List of ethnic slurs	Ever wondered why they got so angry at you?
List of proposed etymologies of OK	There's more than you think, OK?
List of shorthand systems	Featuring Gregg, Pitman, and other quickly-written but only-theoretically-readable scripts.
Longest word in English	Floccinaucinihilipilification, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and other contenders.
Mamihlapinatapai	The Guinness World Record holder for the "most succinct word".
Martian language	Chinese language + Internet = new language.
Maternal insult	What is this article about? Your mom!
May you live in interesting times	The worst curse you can put on someone. Probably not Chinese in origin.
Metal umlaut	Gïvë thë lögö för ÿöür hëävÿ mëtäl bänd ä töügh Gërmänïc fëël.
My postillion has been struck by lightning	A perfectly normal thing to say, as recommended by 19th century multilingual phrasebooks.
Newton's flaming laser sword	Not an actual weapon, but a philosophical razor created by an Australian mathematician.
Nucular	Enough people have mispronounced nuclear that it's apparently a real word now.
Phaistos Disc	Ancient spirals of undeciphered hieroglyphs.
Placeholder name	You know, thingamajigs, doohickeys, whatchamacallits...
Pompatus	All Steve Miller's fault.
Potrzebie	A Polish word best known to American readers of MAD magazine.
Pronunciation of GIF	Remember when the internet spent most of 2014 arguing about this? Good times.
RAS syndrome	...which is itself an example of RAS.
Response to sneezing	Achoo! A great fortunate occurrence!
Robert Shields	You think you are hooked on recording every detail of your life...?
Rohonc Codex	A mysterious book found in Hungary that to this day remains unsolved.
Scientific wild-ass guess	Please excuse my SWAG.
Scots Wikipedia	What happens when an American man writes 23,000 articles in a language he has no idea how to speak?
Shavian alphabet	A new (well, 1960s) alphabet made exclusively for English.
Shibboleth	A type of slang used to identify an individual with a very specific region, usually with accompanied value judgments. Also, a funny word.
Shit happens	A statement of philosophical existentialism boiled down to two words.
Shm-reduplication	Ah, Wikipedia-shmikipedia.
Spelling of Shakespeare's name	What is the correct spelling of the famous English playwright?
Taito	A kanji with 84 strokes, the most for any CJK character by some distance.
Talk to the hand	...'cause the face ain't listening.
Tenevil	Chukchi man who independently created his own writing system for the Chukchi language.
Thagomizer	The word referring to those spikes on the tails of Stegosauria originated from the same guy that made "Cow tools".
That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is	Punctuation matters, people.
The Moon is made of green cheese	Is it really made out of cheese?
There is no sex in the USSR	Did you know that?
Thinking about the immortality of the crab	A colorful Spanish idiom for daydreaming; try using this one if your teacher notices you becoming inattentive in class.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana	Another example of syntactic ambiguity.
Toynbee tiles	Tiles found embedded in asphalt, usually sporting cryptic messages.
Tsundoku	Buy a book and then don't read it.
Unknown unknowns	Things that we don't know we don't know, as immortalised by Donald Rumsfeld.
Voynich manuscript	An undeciphered illustrated book written six hundred or so years ago by an anonymous author using an unidentified alphabet.
Wine-dark sea	Homer's epithet that raises a theory that Greeks of Homer's time were color blind.
Yan tan tethera	The proper, Brythonic way to count sheep oop North.
Zhemao hoaxes	An editor on Chinese Wikipedia created over 200 articles about fake Russian history, making it one of the largest hoaxes on Wikipedia.
Zzxjoanw	A fictional word that really confused linguists.

Specific languages, dialects, and pidgins

Abercraf English	How an all-new variety of English has developed in a single Welsh village since World War II.
Algonquian–Basque pidgin	The linguistic fruit of the travels of Basque whalers.
Basque–Icelandic pidgin
Anāl language	Its phonemic inventory, sadly, doesn't include the voiced anal fricative.
Andalusian language movement	A group of people have attempted to promote Andalusian Spanish as a distinct language. They have successfully created an Andalusian version of Minecraft.
Antarctic English	Not spoken by penguins.
Arcaicam Esperantom	How do you make things look "old" in a constructed language? By inventing a new one!
Boontling	Bet it seems pretty crazeek to harp boont to a kimmie Brightlighter like you, huh?
Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin	A pidgin formed in 20th century Western Australia from Aboriginal Australian English, Japanese, and Kupang Malay to facilitate communication between the variety of groups working on pearling boats in the Kimberley region.
Cia-Cia	A language in Indonesia that came to use the Korean script.
DoggoLingo	Hoomanz wrote thiz cool article about mai language!
Dravido-Korean languages	A discarded and mostly-forgotten hypothesis that Korean and the Dravidian languages of Southern India made up a single language family, despite being thousands of kilometres apart and sharing very little common history.
E-Prime	A form of English without the verb 'to be'.
High Tider	Some people in rural coastal areas of North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland still speak a dialect derived from the English spoken over 300 years ago.
Ithkuil	Try learning this in a weekend!
Jamaican Maroon Spirit Possession Language	A creole language with Akan vocabulary that is spoken by Jamaican Maroons in rituals involving spiritual possession.
Kebabnorsk	The delicious-sounding ethnolect prevalent in multi-ethnic Oslo.
Lojban	A constructed language based on predicate logic.
Mediterranean Lingua Franca	The original lingua franca. Spoken from the 11th to the 19th centuries with substratum from Venetian, Genoese, Catalan, Occitan, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, Berber, Greek, Sicilian, Galician, and many more.
Nicaraguan Sign Language	In the 1980s, Nicaragua's first ever school for the deaf was opened, but rather than teaching them a sign language, the teachers tried teaching them to lip-read Spanish. This failed, and instead the children developed their own sign language from scratch, much to the interest of the world's linguists.
Pandanus language	Elaborate avoidance languages used by peoples of the New Guinea Highlands while foraging for screwpine nuts due to the belief that normal speech carries phrases and words that are unhealthy and will stunt the growth of the nuts.
Pirahã language	A language spoken by the Amazonian Pirahã people, and an example of a language that can be whistled. The subject of controversial claims that it proves the theory of linguistic relativity.
Plains Indian Sign Language	Despite (mostly) not being deaf, the various indigenous peoples of the North American Plains developed a sign language to use as their common form of communication with each other, rather than a lingua franca or creole language.
Proto-Human language	The (completely hypothetical) genetic ancestor to all the world's languages.
Russenorsk	A Slavic-Scandinavian pidgin that lasted only 150 years.
Silbo Gomero	The inhabitants of La Gomera of the Canary Islands communicate across valleys by whistling in Spanish.
Solresol	A constructed language based around musical notes.
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh	The native name of the indigenous Squamish language of British Columbia, which uses the number 7 as a letter.
Toki Pona	The opposite of the previously mentioned Ithkuil. Inspired by minimalism and Taoist philosophy, this constructed language has only 137 regularly used words.
Ubykh language	A language formerly spoken until 1992 by the Ubykh tribe of Circassians. The record-holder for most consonants of any non-click language, with 84 phonemic consonants, yet only 2 distinct vowels.
Wenzhounese	And you thought Mandarin was hard? A Chinese dialect nicknamed "the devil's language" for its extreme divergence and difficulty.
ǃXóõ	A click language with 122 consonants spoken by groups of San people in Namibia and Botswana.
Yerkish	An artificial language developed for use by non-human primates.

Unusual names

See Nominative determinism for the idea that people gravitate toward careers that fit their names, e.g. urologists named Splat and Weedon.

Amandagamani Abhaya of Anuradhapura	A king of Anuradhapura whose name has way too many As for me to be comfortable with.
Arses of Persia	Unfortunately, 4th century BC Persian rulers were unable to predict modern profanity.
Dick Assman	What? He was a celebrity for four months!
Harry Baals	Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana in the 1950s and had a really unfortunate name. Almost immortalized in the Harry Baals Government Center, but it ended up being named Citizens Square instead.
C. H. D. Buys Ballot	No evidence of electoral fraud by the chairman of a precursor to the World Meteorological Organization.
Praise-God Barebone	Christened Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone; not to be confused with his son Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon.
Bishop Bishop (disambiguation)	There have been four different bishops named Bishop in England.
Dick Bong	The most successful American fighter pilot's legal name was Richard, but he only ever went by the name "Dick Bong".
Cesar Chavez	Formerly Scott Fistler, this right-wing, pro-business politician changed his name to match the Hispanic left‑wing labor activist in an attempt to get more votes.
Thursday October Christian I	The son of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutiny on the Bounty.
Deportivo Wanka	An unfortunately named Peruvian football team whose strips are remarkably popular in Britain.
Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft	An officials' association in pre-war Vienna, Austria, of a shipping company for transporting passengers and cargo on the Danube.
Preserved Fish	A historical New York City shipping merchant.
FM-2030	A transhumanist philosopher changed his name to this, inspired by his predictions for the year 2030.
Goodspaceguy	Perennial political candidate in the Seattle area of the United States who legally changed his name to align with his passion for space colonization.
Gregor Fučka	A Slovenian-born Italian basketball player with another socially problematic last name.
Guy Standing	Observed sitting in the infobox photo.
John le Fucker	His surname probably didn't mean what you think it might mean.
Argel Fucks	A Brazilian footballer with a socially problematic last name. An unforgettable newspaper headline once declared "Fucks Off to Benfica".
Jakob Fugger	One of the richest men in history, with another quite unfortunate surname.
States Rights Gist	A Confederate general during the American Civil War.
John B. Goodenough	Being good enough, this guy invented random access memory and the lithium-ion battery.
Curtis Hidden Page	An American writer whose middle and last names accidentally predicted the Internet, and the countless pages on it that could only be accessed by typing their URLs in the URL bar manually.
Ima Hogg	American society leader, philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century.
Huang Hong-cheng, Ah Cheng from Taiwan, World’s Greatest Man, God of Wealth, and President	A performance artist who took full advantage of Taiwan's naming law.
Christmas Humphreys	A British judge, named after the festival celebrating the birth of Christ, who helped make Buddhism popular in the UK.
Tiny Kox	A Dutch politician.
Jennifer 8. Lee	A former New York Times reporter whose middle name is the number eight. And you thought Harry S. Truman had an exceptional middle name...
List of examples of Stigler's law	Bode didn't discover Bode's Law, and Pascal didn't discover Pascal's Triangle.
Henry Lizardlover	Yes, he appreciates reptiles.
Seán Dublin Bay Rockall Loftus	An Irish politician who changed his name to emphasize political affiliations.
Mannanafnanefnd	A committee in Iceland that determines whether a name is suitable for integration into the Icelandic language. Apparently voted yes about themselves.
Adolf Lu Hitler Marak	This Indian politician does not dispraise his parents' questionable name choice.
Mister Mxyzptlk	Sometimes called Mxy, a fictional impish character who appears in DC Comics' Superman comic books.
Names of Soviet origin	In the wake of the Russian Revolution, there was a craze for parents giving names of overtly revolutionary or Soviet inspiration. Examples include "Vladlen" (short for Vladimir Lenin), "Revmir" ("Revolution of the world"), "Elmira" (electrification of the world), "Barrikad" (barricade) and "Geliy" (helium).
Naming law in Sweden	An odd Swedish law regulating children's names, which has led to disgruntled parents submitting names such as Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, A (both pronounced "Albin"), and Metallica.
Neville Neville	The father of English footballers Phil Neville and Gary Neville.
Metta World Peace	An NBA player who wants to promote World Peace and has a reputation for on-court brawls.
Pro-Life	A perennial political candidate with strongly held views.
Public Universal Friend	An 18th century Quaker who died, and was then revived, becoming an evangelist, gaining this unusual name, and becoming one of the earliest instances in recorded history of a person identifying as genderless.
Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz	And that's the short title of this German beef labelling law.
Tokyo Sexwale	Despite not being Japanese or a sperm whale, he has control over the global diamond industry.
Sjokz	Commentator with an equally unpronounceable real name (Eefje Depoortere). Watch out! Eep!
Mansfield Smith-Cumming	The first head of MI6, whose name became appropriate as he promoted the use of semen as invisible ink.
M. K. Stalin	What if old Joe was Tamil?
Téa	This name is surprisingly French and not English.
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos	A warning to us all about taking double-barrelled surnames too far...
Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache	Somehow, it's not even the longest or most extravagant name among his family.
Tonibler	A name given in Kosovo in honor of a certain British politician.
Turnipseed	Only the most hardcore turnip farmers have this name!
Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr.	The longest name ever given. Note: the page title is only the short form.
Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck	Educational professional who earned her Ph.D. with a dissertation on uncommon Black names in the classroom.
Osama Vinladen	Brother to the equally concerning Sadam Huseín and Georgia Bush.
Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos	Did you know that Russian revolutionary and leader of the Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin was a CIA asset?

Archaeoacoustics	Can ancient pottery be used to play back recorded voices from the distant past?
Airborne radioactivity increase in Europe in autumn 2017	It's bizarre, but it did happen.
Ota Benga	The tragic story of a Pygmy man from the Belgian Congo who was briefly exhibited in the Bronx Zoo.
Beringer's Lying Stones	Fossils planted by God? No, just a prank created to discredit a professor whom the hoaxers didn't like.
Buttered cat paradox	If a cat always lands on its feet and toast always lands buttered-side-down, what if...?
Buttered toast phenomenon	But only if you're eating at a table.
Campanology	For the good of society, we must study how to properly ring bells.
Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre	SI rules says you can't use a capital letter for a unit unless it's named after a person, but everyone uses L for the litre... so they made up a namesake.
Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker F. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of about 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles	This scientific paper has the longest article name on Wikipedia (250 characters out of a possible 255). The paper itself only has five words, though.
Vladimir Demikhov	Eminent Soviet biologist and father of the canine head transplant.
Drake's Plate of Brass	A forgery-related practical joke that went horribly awry.
Elvis taxon	A taxon (species, genus, family, etc.) that is extinct but is later imitated by others.
Further research is needed	Some journals have banned this infuriating and redundant cliché. Some researchers are researching its effects, but FRIN...
Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory	You may have had a chemistry set when you were a child. I bet it didn't come with radioactive substances in the box.
Greeble	Stimuli used in studies of object and face recognition with hilarious names.
Lazarus taxon	Leaping Lazarus! Somewhat like Monty Python's Dead Parrot, it's not really dead; it's just resting.
List of Ig Nobel Prize winners	Nobel Prize meets Weird Science. Result: Award-winning papers like "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts" and "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans".
Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism	The intersection of science and religion in a simple bacterium.
'Pataphysics	A parody of science that purports to study what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics.
Archaeological interest of Pedra da Gávea	Did ancient Phoenicians visit Brazil centuries before the Portuguese? Actually, no, they did not.
Pathological science	A pejorative term for scientific ideas that will simply not "go away", long after they are given up on as wrong by the majority of scientists in the field.
Project Steve	In response to creationists' attempts to create a list of evolution-denying scientists, this even longer list consists of scientists who believe in evolution and are called Steve (or some variation).
Raven paradox	First, you'll grant that all ravens are black, yes...?
Sokal affair	Physicist Alan Sokal demonstrates that at least some postmodernists can't see an emperor with no clothes.
Timeline of the far future	The ultimate list of spoilers. Also gives you an existential crisis.
Halomonas titanicae	A unique bacteria found at the Wreck of the Titanic.
John G. Trump	A physicist and inventor with a quite underrated career. Among other things, he was the co-inventor of one of the first million-volt X-ray generators and the man that analyzed Nikola Tesla's hotel room after his death. Also the paternal uncle of Donald Trump.
Women-are-wonderful effect	A subconscious bias that makes people consider positive attributes to be connected to women more than men, regardless of the gender you ask.

Physics

Anatoli Bugorski	What happens when you stick your head in a particle accelerator?
Colors of noise	Including white, pink, purple, blue...
David Hahn	A 17-year-old, known as the Radioactive Boy Scout, who irradiated his back yard attempting to build a nuclear breeder reactor from spare parts.
Demon core	A two-time radioactive killer.
Deutsche Physik	Or "German physics" during the Third Reich.
F. D. C. Willard	A published author in the field of cryogenics, and a cat.
Fictional elements, materials, isotopes and subatomic particles	Not actual periodic elements. Many end in '-ite'. Some of the elements may indeed be minerals.
Fourth, fifth, and sixth derivatives of position	Named after a famous cereal phenomenon.
Flying ice cube	They happen to live inside the computers of scientists trying to simulate molecules.
Frog battery	A curious experiment to determine the existence of animal electricity.
Impossible color	Try to see it!
Kundt's tube	A serious piece of scientific apparatus whose name has induced sniggering among English-speaking schoolchildren for over 150 years.
List of unusual units of measurement	Fortnights and nibbles, super feet and Sagans.
Mpemba effect	Hot water freezes faster than cool water, and no one is sure why. Also probably the only scientific term named after a Tanzanian schoolboy.
Oh-My-God particle	Proof that physicists have a dramatic flair.
Pauli effect	Something in the lab not working? Technical difficulties? Blame this guy.
Quantum suicide and immortality	An infinite number of parallel universes means that any one person will always live forever.
Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube	What happens when you blow in a hole in a tube? Hot air comes out one end and cold air comes out the other. No consensus reached on why it happens yet.
Rheology of peanut butter	A serious analysis of the tastiest viscoelastic colloid.
Shower-curtain effect	Nobody knows why when you turn on the hot water in the shower, the curtain blows in.
Smoot	A strange unit of distance used to measure the Harvard Bridge.
Sound of fingernails scraping chalkboard	Urrrgggh!
The Hum	A phenomenon involving a persistent and invasive low-frequency noise of a humming character and unknown origin, not audible to all people, reported in various geographical locations.

Earth sciences

Aachenosaurus	A fossil plant that was mistakenly identified as a dinosaur.
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition	An ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole in 1897.
Ararat anomaly	A strange geological element that, for years, has confused practicing Christians and geologists.
Bloop	Does a mystery sound from the bottom of the sea indicate that Cthulhu may awake...?
Floyd Collins	A cave explorer from the early 20th century that got stuck in a cave in Kentucky. Despite a massive rescue effort, he ended up dying there, but that wasn't the end of his story.
Continental drip	A playful theory devised to explain why the continents are tapered toward the south.
Expanding Earth	A theory that the Earth is growing.
Hector (cloud)	A cumulonimbus thundercloud cluster that forms regularly nearly every afternoon on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory of Australia, from approximately September to March each year. Also known as "Hector the Convector."
Snow in Florida	Yes, snow is not unknown in the "Sunshine State".
Kentucky meat shower	It's raining meat. Hallelujah it's raining meat.
List of unexplained sounds	Must've been the wind.
Mumbai "sweet" seawater incident	Salty creek becomes sweet for one tide cycle.
Rain of animals	When it's literally raining cats and dogs.
Red rain in Kerala	Did blood rain from the sky?
South-up map orientation	The crew of Apollo 17 snapped Earth with Antarctica on top. NASA followed Ptolemy and rotated it "back".
Roy Sullivan	An unlucky park ranger who was hit by lightning on seven separate occasions. He survived them all, but came to his own tragic end.
Tinnunculite	A recently discovered mineral that forms from bird feces.
Waffle House Index	The U.S. government's alternative measure of disaster impact.

Chemistry and material science

Space and astronomy

1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg	Perhaps one of the first "alien" sightings in recorded history.
Apollo 15 postal covers incident	Three astronauts never flew to space again after being paid to take postal covers with them on Apollo 15. But that's not much of a punishment though, considering they got to go to the freakin' Moon.
Blue Origin v. United States & Space Exploration Technologies Corp.	Two companies got into a brat fight and sued NASA in the process.
Judith Love Cohen	One of the most important female scientists involved with the Apollo program, and Jack Black's mother. Some might say this is not the best article on Wikipedia.... this is just a tribute to her.
Cosmic latte	The average colour of the Universe: a slightly beige white.
Cydonia (Mars)	You've heard of the man on the Moon, now get ready for the "Face on Mars", well, sort of...
Edward Makuka Nkoloso	The leader of a non-government Zambian space program planned to send "Afronauts" to Mars with the goal of establishing a Christian ministry to civilise Martians.
Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster	Driving in space becomes reality.
Embryo space colonization	A proposal for colonizing space using embryos raised by robots.
Extraterrestrial real estate	Want to buy a housing plot on the Moon?
Fallen Astronaut	A small statuette which is the only sculpture on the Moon.
Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey	Five mice who circled the Moon 75 times on Apollo 17, among the last eight Earthlings to travel to the Moon. Upon returning to Earth, the four remaining living mice were soon murdered and dissected in the name of science. ("That's one small squeak...")
Gauss's Pythagorean right triangle proposal	Proposal of Pythagorean theorem "drawing" to be constructed in the Siberian tundra as a signal for extraterrestrials.
Harlan J. Smith Telescope	Have you heard about the telescope that got shot? Contrary to initial reports, the harm from the bullets was extraordinary small.
Hot, dust-obscured galaxy	Hot DOGs, anyone?
International Space Station cannabis experiment hoax	Need we say more?
Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect	Sadly, the alignment of two planets wouldn't allow the British public to float. Maybe the fact that the news came out on April 1 should have clued them in.
List of hypothetical Solar System objects	The planets that could have been. You think Pluto had it rough? At least it got its fifteen minutes of astronomical fame.
Lunarcrete	Perfect for building your own cut-price Moon base.
Mars Climate Orbiter	Failed Mars mission that disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere due to a unit conversion error.
Matrioshka brain	Star-sized computer.
Milkdromeda	The birth of a future galaxy, and the death of our own.
Mimas (moon)	A moon that looks like the Death Star.
The Moon is made of green cheese	Scientific consensus says it isn't, but are there people (or wolves) who think so?
Moon landing conspiracy theories	Fake photos, slow-motion cameras and secret studios. All directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Moon Museum	Only two people have ever seen its exhibits in person.
Nazi UFOs	Did the Luftwaffe, in fact, explore the final frontier and make contact with alien races? Whether the secret Nazi base is on the Moon or in Antarctica, the truth is apparently out there.
Nuclear pasta	Gnocchi, spaghetti, lasagna, bucatini and Swiss cheese may sound tasty at first, until you realized that one teaspoon of this pasta weighs more than Mount Everest...
Peryton (astronomy)	Don't use microwaves next to radio telescopes!
Seatbelt basalt	A lunar sample spotted by David Scott while driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the moon. He assumed that mission control wouldn't allow him to stop and get it, so he pretended he was fastening his seatbelt.
Sex in space	And when you've exhausted the list, here's something new to try!
Space advertising	Plans to launch giant billboards into space.
Space elevator competitions	How high can you go?
Spaghettification	What happens when you fall into a black hole.
Stolen and missing Moon rocks	The rocks were out of this world! Unfortunately, they fell into the wrong hands.
Solway Firth Spaceman	"Wasn't there when I took the pic – honest!"
Space Poop Challenge	A challenge in 2016 to design a new toilet system for use in space.
Supermoon	It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supermoon! (Actually, this is a phenomenon where the moon appears slightly larger than normal. Still impressive, though.)
Sylacauga (meteorite)	The first fallen meteorite in recorded history to have verifiably injured a human.
Tabby's Star	A star that has been suggested to have an alien megastructure surrounding it.
Timekeeping on Mars	How Martians know when they are.
Vatican Observatory	One of the few official scientific institutions linked with the Catholic Church.
Voyager Golden Record	A compilation of sounds and images of humanity on a phonograph record made of gold-plated copper. It was sent to space in 1977 and is currently the farthest man-made object from Earth.
274301 Wikipedia	A comet named after Wikipedia. We truly came to the stars.
Wow! signal	Alien radio transmission, or, at least, the strongest candidate for that role.
Writing in space	How do you write in space?
iPTF14hls	A star that seems to have exploded 6 times in the past 70 years.

Medicine and health