The Selected picture box on the portal chooses one of the following at random when displaying the page. Follow the instructions below for adding or nominating a new picture to the list.
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featured pictures to the list. Nominate other pictures
on the portal talk page.
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- Interesting
- Relevant to an article or topic
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Instructions
- For pictures, which appeared as
picture of the day on the Main Page, just add the date in
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format to the list (please keep the list sorted).
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where N
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Selected pictures list
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Illustration of the
Ptolemaic
geocentric model of the Universe (the theory that the
Earth is the center of the
universe) by
Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer
Bartolomeu Velho. Taken from his treatise
Cosmographia, made in Paris, 1568. Notice the distances of the bodies to the centre of the Earth (left) and the times of revolution, in years (right).
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Credit: Martin Waldseemüller
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Photo credit:
MODIS Rapid Response Project,
NASA
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Photo: Jeff Schmaltz,
MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA A satellite photo of
Great Britain and part of
Ireland showing the extent of
snow cover during the
winter of 2009–2010, the coldest in Europe since 1981–82. Starting on
16 December 2009 a persistent weather pattern brought cold moist air from the north with systems undergoing
cyclogenesis from North American storms moving across the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and saw many parts of Europe experiencing heavy snowfall and record low temperatures.
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Author:
John Mitchell; scan: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. The
Mitchell Map is the most comprehensive
map of eastern
North America made during the
colonial era. Measuring about 6.5 ft (2.0 m) wide by 4.5 ft (1.4 m) high, it was produced by
John Mitchell in 1757 in eight separate sheets. The map was used during the
Treaty of Paris for defining the boundaries of the United States, and remains important today for resolving border disputes.
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Photo: Blue Marble by Reto Stockli,
NASA/
GSFC
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A
world map entitled
Nova totius terrarum orbis tabula Amstelodami, created in 1689 by
Gerard van Schagen. This map, created in Amsterdam, measures 48.3 by 56.0 centimetres (19.0 by 22.0 in) in size and was made using
copper engraving.
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Map:
Strebe, using the Geocart map projection software A
two-point equidistant projection of
Eurasia. All distances of other points from the two points marked in red (45°N 40°E and 30°N 110°E) are correct. This map is a derivative of
NASA's
Blue Marble summer month composite, with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast.
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Map:
Strebe, using the Geocart map projection software
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A detailed eighteenth-century map of Scandinavia by
J. B. Homann, depicting
Denmark,
Norway,
Sweden,
Finland and the
Baltic states of
Livonia,
Latvia and
Curlandia. The map notes fortified cities, villages, roads, bridges, forests, castles and topography. The elaborate title
cartouche in the upper left quadrant features angels supporting a title curtain and a medallion supporting an alternative title in French, "Les Trois Covronnes du Nord".
Born in 1664, Homann became an engraver and cartographer in the late 17th century, and opened his own publishing house in 1702. In 1715 Emperor
Charles VI appointed him Imperial Geographer of the
Holy Roman Empire. Homann held the position until his death in 1724.
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The
General Perspective projection is a
map projection used in
cartography in which the Earth is depicted as viewed from a finite distance above its surface. If the view precisely faces the center of the Earth, the projection is a vertical perspective projection; otherwise, it is a tilted perspective projection. Here is shown a vertical perspective from an altitude of 35,786 km over (0°, 90°W), corresponding to a view from
geostationary orbit. Due to the
horizon as seen from the viewpoint position, the projection always shows less than half of the Earth's surface: in this case neither of the
North and South Poles is visible.
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The
Gall–Peters projection, named after
James Gall and
Arno Peters, is a specialization of a configurable equal-area
map projection known as the
cylindrical equal-area projection. It achieved considerable notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of a controversy surrounding the political implications of map design; Peters promoted it as a more faithful representation than the
Mercator projection, which inflates the sizes of regions farther from the equator and thus makes the (mostly technologically underdeveloped) equatorial countries appear smaller and therefore, according to Peters, less significant.
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The
van der Grinten projection is a compromise
map projection that is neither
equal-area nor
conformal. It projects the entire Earth into a circle, though the polar regions are subject to extreme distortion. The projection was the first of four proposed by Alphons J. van der Grinten in 1904, and, unlike perspective projections, is an arbitrary geometric construction on the plane. It was adopted as the
National Geographic Society's reference map of the world from 1922 until 1988.
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Daedongyeojido is a large scale map of Korea produced by
Chosun Dynasty cartographer and geologist
Kim Jeong-ho in 1861. Considered to mark the zenith of pre-modern Korean cartography, the map consists of 22 separate, foldable booklets, each covering approximately 47 kilometres (29 mi) (north-south) by 31.5 kilometres (19.6 mi) (east-west). Combined, they form a map of Korea that is 6.7 metres (22 ft) wide and 3.8 metres (12 ft) long. Daedongyeojido is praised for precise delineations of mountain ridges, waterways, and transportation routes, as well as its markings for settlements, administrative areas, and cultural sites.
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The
equirectangular projection is a simple
map projection attributed to
Marinus of Tyre, who
Ptolemy claims invented the projection about AD 100. The projection maps
meridians to vertical straight lines of constant spacing, and
circles of latitude to horizontal straight lines of constant spacing. The projection is neither equal area nor
conformal. Because of the distortions introduced by this projection, it has few applications beyond base imagery to be reprojected to some more useful projection.
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The
Mercator projection is a
cylindrical map projection presented by the
Flemish geographer and cartographer
Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Because it represents paths of constant
course as straight lines, it long served as the standard map projection for nautical purposes. However, it distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases: thus areas in the mid-latitudes appear significantly larger than their actual size relative to those the equator, and those near the poles are even more exaggerated. Most modern atlases no longer use the Mercator projection for world maps or for areas distant from the equator, preferring other cylindrical projections, or forms of
equal-area projection.
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The
Mollweide projection is an
equal-area,
pseudocylindrical map projection generally used for global maps of the world or night sky. The projection was first published by mathematician and astronomer
Karl Mollweide of
Leipzig in 1805 but reinvented and popularized in 1857 by
Jacques Babinet. The projection trades accuracy of angle and shape for accuracy of proportions in area, and as such is used where that property is needed, such as maps depicting global distributions.
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Fanny Bullock Workman (1859–1925) was an American
geographer,
cartographer, explorer,
travel writer, and
mountaineer. Together with her husband, William Hunter Workman, she traveled by bicycle through Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Algeria and India; after taking up climbing in the
Himalayas, she set a
women's altitude record on
Pinnacle Peak, reaching 23,000 feet (7,000 m). She published eight travel books, with particular focus on the lives of women in the countries she visited, and championed women's rights and
women's suffrage.
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The
Catalan Atlas is a medieval map in the
Catalan language, created in 1375. Described as "the zenith of medieval map-work", it is the earliest known chart to use a
compass rose. It was produced by the
Majorcan cartographic school and is attributed to
Abraham Cresques, a Jewish book illuminator described by a contemporary as a master of
mappae mundi. It has been in the royal library of France (now the
Bibliothèque nationale de France) since the time of
King Charles V. The atlas originally consisted of six vellum leaves, each about 64.5 by 50 cm (25.4 by 19.7 in), folded vertically and painted in various colours including gold and silver. This picture is a montage of eight pages (four leaves) of the atlas, depicting Europe, northern Africa and Asia.
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North Cascades National Park is an American
national park in the state of
Washington. At more than 500,000 acres (200,000 ha), North Cascades National Park is the largest of the three
National Park Service units that comprise the
North Cascades National Park Complex. North Cascades National Park consists of a northern and southern section, bisected by the
Skagit River that flows through
Ross Lake National Recreation Area.
Lake Chelan National Recreation Area lies on the southern border of the south unit of the park. In addition to the two
national recreation areas, other protected lands including several
national forests and
wilderness areas, as well as
Canadian provincial parks in
British Columbia, nearly surround the park. North Cascades National Park features the rugged mountain peaks of the
North Cascades Range, the most expansive glacial system in the
contiguous United States, the headwaters of numerous waterways, and vast forests with the highest degree of flora
biodiversity of any American national park.
This picture is a panoramic map of North Cascades National Park, as viewed from the east, created in 1987 by Austrian painter and cartographer
Heinrich C. Berann for the National Park Service.
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A
compass rose, sometimes called a windrose or rose of the winds, is a figure on a compass, map,
nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the
cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass. Today, a form of compass rose is found on, or featured in, almost all navigation systems, including nautical charts,
non-directional beacons,
VHF omnidirectional range systems,
GPS, and similar equipment.
This picture is an illustration of a compass rose, copied from a 1492
portolan chart by Portuguese navigator and cartographer Jorge de Aguiar, now in the
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
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Typhoon Noru was the second-longest lasting
tropical cyclone of the northwest Pacific Ocean on record. The fifth named storm of the
2017 Pacific typhoon season, it formed on July 19 and reached peak intensity on July 31 with 175 km/h (110 mph) 10-minute sustained winds. By this time, as shown in this satellite image, the
typhoon was located south of
Iwo Jima, and had taken on
annular characteristics, with a symmetric ring of deep convection surrounding a 30 km (19 mi) well defined eye and fairly uniform cloud top temperatures. Traveling northwestward over an area of low ocean heat content, the eye became enlarged and ragged as the system weakened. By the time Noru made
landfall over
Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, on August 7, it had been downgraded to a severe tropical storm. It then dissipated over the
Sea of Japan on August 9 as an
extratropical cyclone.
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The
Robinson projection is a
projection of a
world map showing the entire Earth at once. It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise to the problem of showing the whole globe as a single flat image. The projection was devised by
Arthur H. Robinson in 1963; distortion is severe close to the poles, but quickly declines to moderate levels as latitudes decrease. This Robinson-projection map, with
standard parallels of 38°N and 38°S, was produced by the United States
Central Intelligence Agency and shows the world as of February 2016.