60 Fun Facts About Canyons of the World

What primarily forms a canyon?

Rivers cut down toward the level of the water body they drain into, especially where hard and soft rock layers alternate.

From which language does the word 'canyon' come?

Gorge and ravine, by contrast, are French in origin and more common in Europe.

Why do canyons favour dry regions over wet ones?

Frost wedging, where water freezes in cracks, also helps break off chunks of canyon wall.

What defines a box canyon?

Ranchers in the American West fenced their mouths and used them as corrals.

What is a river called that keeps its path through a canyon as the land uplifts around it?

The Colorado and the Snake are the classic American examples.

The canyon regarded by many as the deepest on Earth, at about 5,500 metres, is in which region?

It runs along the Yarlung Tsangpo and is slightly longer than the Grand Canyon.

The Yarlung Tsangpo is the upper course of which great river?

The gorge bends around Mount Namcha Barwa in the eastern Himalayas.

Between which two 8,000-metre peaks does Nepal's Kali Gandaki Gorge run?

The river lies about 5,571 metres below the summit of Annapurna I.

The Kali Gandaki region is famous for shaligram fossils, revered by Hindus as a form of which god?

They are one of five non-living forms of the deity.

Which two canyons in southern Peru compete for the title of deepest in the Americas?

Both are more than 3,500 metres deep, twice the Grand Canyon.

Which bird is the star attraction of Colca Canyon, gliding past the walls at close range?

Colca is Peru's third most-visited destination with about 120,000 visitors a year.

Cotahuasi Canyon lies between which two Andean massifs?

Its depth of about 3,354 metres is more than twice that of the Grand Canyon.

What is the largest canyon in Africa?

It is in southern Namibia, about 160 km long and up to 550 metres deep.

What hot-springs resort sits at the lower end of Namibia's great canyon?

Public viewpoints are near Hobas, 70 km to the north.

What makes South Africa's Blyde River Canyon unusual among the world's great gorges?

It passes the Three Rondavels rock formation on the Panorama Route.

What does 'Blyde' mean in old Dutch, a name given by Voortrekkers in 1844?

Hendrik Potgieter's party returned safely from Delagoa Bay to companions who thought them dead.

Which Tanzanian Rift Valley site yielded the hominin fossils excavated by Louis and Mary Leakey?

Its name comes from the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant.

Europe's largest canyon, 1,300 m deep and nicknamed the Tear of Europe, lies mostly in which country?

It is the Tara River Canyon, and part of it forms the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The most striking part of the Tara River Canyon lies within which UNESCO-listed national park?

Across the border it is also protected as the Tara Nature Park.

Greece's Vikos Gorge holds which Guinness record?

It ranges from 120 to 1,350 metres deep but narrows to a few metres in places.

On which Greek island is the Samaria Gorge, a national park since 1962?

The 16 km hike ends at the Libyan Sea at Agia Roumeli.

The Verdon Gorge in Provence is named for the river's distinctive colour, which is what?

Its limestone walls carry some 1,500 rock-climbing routes.

Which river carved the Grand Canyon?

The canyon is 277 miles long and over a mile deep.

Roughly how many years of Earth's geological history are exposed in the Grand Canyon's walls?

The schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge is about two billion years old.

Who led the first expedition by boat down the Grand Canyon in 1869?

He had four reinforced rowboats built in Chicago and shipped west on the new railroad.

In which year did the Grand Canyon become a national park?

It had been a national monument since 1908.

Which Spaniard was the first European known to have seen the Grand Canyon, in 1540?

Pueblo peoples had long regarded the canyon as a holy site.

What is the name of the gap in the Grand Canyon's rock record between 1.75 and 1.25 billion years ago?

The rim rock, the Kaibab Limestone, is a mere 270 million years old.

Which gorge on the Snake River is North America's deepest?

At 7,993 feet it runs deeper than the Grand Canyon, along the Oregon-Idaho border.

Which Australian canyon is the widest in the world, a kilometre wider than the Grand Canyon?

It lies 135 km north-west of Sydney beside the Wollemi National Park.

At 750 km, where is the canyon believed to be the world's longest, discovered in 2013?

It was found by analysing data from Operation IceBridge.

Antelope Canyon, the famous slot canyon in Arizona, lies on whose land?

Its scenic sections include The Crack and The Corkscrew.

Antelope Canyon's flowing shapes were carved out of what rock?

Flash floods carrying sand rush through the narrow passages, smoothing the walls.

What depth-to-width ratio typically defines a slot canyon?

Some are less than a metre wide at the top yet drop more than 30 metres.

How many canyons make up Mexico's Copper Canyon system?

Six rivers drain the Sierra Tarahumara and merge into the Rio Fuerte.

What is the popular railway through Copper Canyon called?

The Chihuahua al Pacífico was not finished until 1961 and has 39 bridges and 86 tunnels.

The Rarámuri, the indigenous inhabitants of Copper Canyon, bear a name that may mean what?

Colonists rendered the name as Tarahumara.

Waimea, a 3,000-foot-deep gorge on Kauaʻi, is nicknamed what?

Waimea means reddish water, after its eroding red soil.

Which Mexican canyon on the Grijalva River has walls up to 1,000 metres high?

It lies just north of Chiapa de Corzo in Chiapas.

Kazakhstan's Charyn Canyon lies about 200 km east of which city?

Its river rises in the Tian Shan mountains near the Chinese border.

What is the Aboriginal name for Kings Canyon in Australia's Northern Territory?

It is the Luritja word for the local umbrella bush.

Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed mainly by what?

Turbidity currents can race down the continental slope at 70 km/h.

Which submarine canyon off California has walls a mile high, rivalling the Grand Canyon?

It begins at Moss Landing and runs 95 miles out under the Pacific.

Which submarine canyon, extending from an African river, is the largest river canyon at 800 km long?

Perth Canyon off Western Australia holds the world's largest plunge pool.

What is the largest canyon in the Solar System?

It is over 4,000 km long, 200 km wide and up to 7 km deep.

The largest canyon in the Solar System is named after which spacecraft?

The 1971-72 Mars orbiter discovered it; the name is Latin for Mariner Valleys.

In US place names, why does 'canyon' dominate the south-west while 'gorge' is favoured in the north-east?

The rest of the country grades between the two terms according to geography.

How were box canyons often put to use in the western United States?

A box canyon has steep walls on three sides, so livestock can only get out through the mouth.

Which South African term for a gorge appears in the name of the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve?

South Africa also uses 'canyon' (Blyde River Canyon) and 'gorge' (Oribi Gorge), while Britain occasionally uses the military word 'defile'.

Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest complete human skeleton found in Cheddar Gorge in 1903, is roughly how old?

Even older Upper Palaeolithic remains, 12,000–13,000 years old, have turned up in the gorge's caves.

How wide is the Jinsha River at the narrowest point of Tiger Leaping Gorge, where legend says the tiger jumped?

The gorge lies 60 km north of Lijiang and drops some 3,790 m from river to peak, one of the deepest in the world.

Which indigenous people mainly inhabit the hamlets inside Tiger Leaping Gorge?

They live off grain farming and, increasingly, hiking tourism.

Which iconic Bristol structure spans the Avon Gorge?

Three Iron Age hill forts overlook the 1.5-mile limestone gorge, which once formed a defensive gateway to the port.

The Fraser Canyon in British Columbia was carved during which geological epoch?

The river cut into the uplifting Interior Plateau and follows the line of the huge Fraser Fault.

Ithaca Chasma, a 2,000 km valley wrapping three-quarters of the way around a moon, is on which body?

Voyager 1 discovered it in November 1980; it may have formed when the moon's internal ocean froze and expanded.

Vid Flumina, which cuts canyons on Titan, is a river of what?

It runs more than 400 km into Ligeia Mare, carving into water ice as if it were bedrock.

The Gorges du Tarn run between the Méjean plateau and which other limestone plateau?

The canyon is about 53 km long and 400–600 m deep, mostly in the Lozère département.

Which Scottish body has owned Corrieshalloch Gorge, near Ullapool, since 1945?

The 46-metre Falls of Measach can be viewed from a Victorian suspension footbridge.

Which 1982 fantasy film used the waterfall at Gordale Scar in Yorkshire as an exterior location?

Turner and James Ward both painted the ravine, and Wordsworth called it 'terrific as the lair where the young lions couch'.

Palo Duro Canyon, 'the Grand Canyon of Texas', takes its name from Spanish words meaning what?

Members of Coronado's expedition were the first Europeans to see it, in 1541.