With satellite imagery of the whole planet and submersibles that have reached the depths of the Mariana trench, it may come as a surprise that there’s still so much of the earths surface that we have absolutely no idea about.
1) The Ocean
20,000 years ago the sea level was around 130 metres lower than it is today. This would provide an area of millions of square miles of land around the world, complete with forests, caves and whatever else happened to be in the area. So far we have only mapped around 5% of the ocean floors, which leaves an enormous amount of space still to explore.
Every year someone discovers a new species or an ancient shipwreck, and with the enormous amount of lost treasure and mineral deposits down there, the person who invents a practical way to scout the ocean floor would become very rich indeed.
2) The Amazon
Even though there’s detailed over head satellite images of the entire forest, we cant see whats below the trees. The lost city of Paititi is one of the most famous cities in the Amazon that’s yet to be discovered, but stories of countless lost settlements and vast treasures are plentiful.
The problem with moving through the rain forest is how to navigate in the non stop thick vegetation, and also how to move faster than a few miles a day. Supplies and tools all have to be carried on foot as there’s normally no where to land a helicopter and roads are few and far between.
With many famous tribes living in the forest throughout history, it wouldn’t be to far fetched to think that some of them created things that appear to be nothing but tree canopies from the air, but until some brave explorer tries to find them, and makes it out alive, we’ll never know.
3) Canada
The south section of the country is very well mapped, with this being the countries primary farming area and also contains the biggest population centres, but when you start to get into the northern lake regions, you could very well step within a square mile that no living human has ever seen before.
Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador along with the Northwest territories are the most unexplored regions of the country. The reason for this is due to the climate as its way to cold to successfully grow crops, and this shortage of locally produced food has stopped people from moving there, leading to a very sparsely populated area.
The other big factor in this regions lack of exploration is due to the lakes. If you look at the northern areas of any of the previously mentioned regions, they are scattered in thousands of lakes. This makes it very difficult to get any kind of vehicle through which means everything has to be taken on foot, but since there’s thousands of square miles of nothing, people simply cant carry enough to make any real distance.
4) Siberia
Russia is the biggest country on earth by far in terms of territory, and Siberia makes up a huge part of it. With such a large amount of land the country has a relatively small population in comparison, and one of the biggest reasons for this is due to its climate.
The northern areas of the country are very cold and suffer from perma frost, making it very hard to grow anything substantial. The quietest part of Siberia is the eastern province formally known as Kamchatka, which is also home to the largest population of brown bears in the world. It also boasts the most divers range of salmon and is home to many undiscovered mineral deposits.
5) Greenland
I wanted to include Antarctica on this list, and even though it is one of the most unexplored regions of the world, its nothing but snow and glaciers for the vast majority of it as the actual land is under as much as 2 miles of ice.
Greenland on the other hand has a little more ice-free space, though the majority of the country is still nothing but glaciers. Greenland is what would happen to Antarctica in several hundred, or thousands of years. Its starting to thaw and reveal more of its land, and with such a big country there will surely be many long lost deposits and possible the remains of whoever, or whatever lived there before it froze.