Happy July 4th, the day we celebrate in the United States as our independence day from the United Kingdom. If you’re from the United States, I hope today and this weekend are a welcome reprieve from the stresses of the world as you take in the summer and go to a BBQ or whatever it is you like to do on this holiday. Though, I also know that many of you are sweltering under a heat dome that’s currently pummeling the east and south east part of the country right now.

If you’re NOT from the United States, well this is just a normal Saturday for you. A July 4th just like any July 4th ever in the world. Except you probably get to hear a lot more complaining about fireworks online from people you may know from the States.

Regardless of whether you’re from the United States or not, this article is a celebration of not only the United States, but of the AGE of the United States. You see, right now, as I publish this post, the country has officially hit 250 years old. I guess, technically, you could make the argument that it’s a bit older given that the First Continental Congress met in 1774, but that’s neither here nor there. The official recognized date is July 4th, 1776. So… 250! Which brings me to the subject at hand: is the United States an old country or a young one?

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Last Friday asked a very interesting question: do you feel geographically safe? And a number of you responded with all kinds of interesting answers. But broadly, I think I can summarize them as “no.” Which isn’t really a surprise to me, to be honest. In our hyper-connected and hyper-sensationalized news media world, it can feel like being safe from anything is impossible. But geographically, it’s also a challenge.

And so, because this was top of mind, and I also released a video about the geographic problems looming for Pakistan yesterday, I’ve been thinking more broadly about the question. And as I was thinking about which regions are geographically safe versus those that are not: one region kept coming up as the absolute most challenging region to live in with respects to the natural geography: the Sahel.

But first let’s establish the basics:

What and where is the Sahel?

If you want to understand the Sahel, you first have to look at its name. Which, unless you’re super into geographic regions, may very well be someplace you’ve never heard of before. It’s relatively obscure because, well, it’s pretty empty overall. Anyways, back to the name:

Derived from the Arabic word sāḥil, meaning “coast” or “shore,” the Sahel’s name might initially be a little confusing because this is a huge tract of dry, inland arid desert. And while, depending on where you draw your boundaries, the Sahel does indeed have a coast with both the Atlantic Ocean in the west and the Red Sea in the east. Sometimes maps don’t include the coast, sometimes they do. I don’t know the details. Regardless, those two relatively tiny coastlines are not the reason for the name. No, it’s because the Sahel runs right up against the Sahara Desert, the the “coast” is in reference to the ocean of sand bordering the region to the north. Simple right?

Geographically, of course, the Sahel is a sprawling ecoregion and transition zone in northern-ish Africa. It essentially acts as the great divide between the hyper-arid expanse of the Sahara Desert to the north and the lush, tropical Sudanian savannas to the south. Stretching roughly 3,860 miles (5,400 kilometers) across the widest part of the African continent, it forms a continuous belt from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east (again, sometimes, ugh).

All this is to say, this is a land of extremes. The landscape is pretty flat with barren plains, scattered thorny shrubs, and resilient baobab trees (very cool looking!). It experiences an eight- to nine-month dry season, followed by a brief, highly unpredictable rainy season. And while the Sahel is not quite a desert, it is constantly flirting with becoming one, making it an incredibly precarious place for the ecosystems—and the millions of people—that call it home.

From west to east, the core countries that make up the Sahel include:

• Senegal

• The Gambia

• Mauritania

• Mali

• Burkina Faso

• Niger

• Nigeria (the extreme northern region)

• Chad

• Sudan

• Eritrea

While other neighboring countries (like Cameroon or the Central African Republic) occasionally fall into broader definitions of the region, the countries above are the ones whose destinies, economies, and political realities are most intimately tied to the harsh conditions of this transitional zone. Maybe The Gambia doesn’t fall in there though because its whole economic and geographic destiny is tied to The Gambia River… Hmmm I’ll have to think on that one.

Why the Sahel defies stability

To say the Sahel is a challenging place to live is an incredible understatement. It’s arguably the most geographically vulnerable region on the planet. The very nature of the land fundamentally undermines the basic building blocks of a stable nation-state.

But let’s break it down specifically. Here’s why geography makes governance and survival so extraordinarily difficult in the Sahel:

The climate is a threat multiplier

The Sahel is warming 1.5 times faster than the global average. It suffers from severe, cyclical droughts, unpredictable rainfall, and rapid desertification. Because over 80% of the population relies on rain-fed agriculture and pastoralism (livestock herding) to survive, a bad rainy season doesn’t just mean a poor harvest, it means widespread famine. There is virtually no economic safety net because the environment simply can’t consistently support one.

Lethal resource competition

And so, in a region where arable land and water are vanishing, competition for those same resources turns deadly. For centuries, nomadic herders and sedentary farmers coexisted through symbiotic relationships. Today, as the desert encroaches south, herders are forced onto agricultural lands to find pasture and water. This geographic squeeze has ignited hyper-local, violent conflicts between communities, which destabilize entire provinces.

Everything is SO far away

But also, Sahelian countries are massive. Like way bigger than the map suggests. Mali and Niger are each roughly twice the size of Texas or France. Yet, the harsh terrain makes building roads, power grids, or communication networks incredibly expensive and logistically nightmarish. When a central government in a capital city can’t physically reach its peripheral populations to provide schools, hospitals, or security, the social contract naturally breaks down. After all, if you got no services from a government thousands of miles away, wouldn’t you stop being loyal to it as well?

Ungovernable spaces

Finally, this state weakness creates a power vacuum, and geography provides the perfect cover. The vast, empty, and porous borders of the Sahel are impossible to police even for militaries. This makes the region a haven for militant insurgencies, terrorist organizations (infamously Boko Haram), and transnational smuggling rings (moving weapons, drugs, and human beings). These groups exploit the harsh geography to hide, operate, and recruit from impoverished, disenfranchised populations who feel abandoned by their distant governments.

There are, of course, plenty of very challenging regions of the world to live in. I believe the Philippines is largely considered to be the most natural disaster prone country on the planet. And of course southwest and central Asia are not looking so hot these days either. It’s why I made a whole video about Pakistan, after all. But regardless, the Sahel still stands as a region with just not a whole lot of options for progress. The natural geography of it is such an impediment.

Also, you’ll note that I didn’t really discuss the Sudan Civil War that is currently still going on. This was intentional. While I believe the physical geography is certainly a cause for why the civil war is happening, it’s certainly not the only or one of the major causes. And it reference it in this article which is largely about the challenging geography would feel tacky, at best. I only mention it here so that you know that it is something that crossed my mind. I didn’t forget about it.

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As I watch, from afar, how Europe is enduring yet another record-breaking heat wave I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of geographic comfortability. This is the concept that the geography around you is naturally comfortable for human beings. Of course, on a personal level that comfortability scale changes. Some people genuinely prefer the hot heat like we see in desert locations. Others prefer constant damp and cool days. But generally, humans as a species do best on the cooler side. From what I’ve read, somewhere around 20°C (or 68°F in freedom units).

Suffice it to say, the heat hitting Paris or London this past week has been well above that. Which has actually broadened my thought process to something similar, but also fundamentally different and scarier to think about: geographic safety. It’s similar to geographic comfortability, but with a more sinister twist. It’s the idea that, depending on the likelihood of a geographic event (heat wave, hurricane, sea level rise, flooding, wild fire, and so on), you feel inherently safe or unsafe where you live.

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The Mediterranean Sea is, geopolitically, already a complicated place. With Europe in the north, Africa in the south, and a bit of Asia (by way of the Middle East) in the east, there are a lot of competing cultures, religions and borders cross-crossing the enter region. But as far as islands go, most things are pretty cut and dry. Not discounting desires for independence, you can pretty easily see who has sovereignty over which island:

• Corsica - France

• Sardinia - Italy

• Crete - Greece

• Malta - well, Malta of course

But then there’s Cyprus. Cyprus is complicated because, while there is a country called the Republic of Cyprus, it does not have full sovereignty over the whole island. In fact, it doesn’t even make up half of the islands.

Why Cyprus was divided in the first place

Okay so, the original division of Cyprus is really rooted in decades of ethnic tensions between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, which boiled over following its independence from British rule in 1960. The United Kingdom is still very much in the mix today, but we’ll get to them in a bit. For now, let’s return to the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Cypriots, in case you were unaware, is the demonym for people of Cyprus.

It all comes back to Greece and Turkey. If you’re not from this part of the world, or haven’t spent much time in it, you might assume Greece and Türkiye are just neighboring countries. And while that kind of closeness is always bound to generate some sort of rivalry and resentment, most neighbors are not quite as hostile towards each other as these two. Aside from the ones in active or cold war (Ukraine/Russia, North/South Korea) the only one I would say is as acrimonious is India and Pakistan.

All of this is to say, because Greece and Türkiye have had such a long and bitter relationship, this has naturally bled over into regions where there are large ethnic populations of both. Cyprus, being near both countries (though physically closer to Türkiye), means it was always bound to be a mini-arena for this rivalry to play out.

But let’s back up and see how this played over over the last few decades:

• Independence & unrest (1960-1963)

  • Cyprus gains independence from Britain. Power-sharing agreements between Greek and Turkish Cypriots quickly break down, leading to violence.

• UN Intervention (1964)

  • The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus is established to prevent further fighting, marking the early origins of what would become the “Green Line.”

• Coup & invasion (1974)

  • A Greek military junta sponsors a coup in Cyprus aiming to unite the island with Greece (Enosis). In response, Türkiye invades the northern part of the island, citing its role as a guarantor of the 1960 constitution and the need to protect Turkish Cypriots.

• The Formal Split (1983)

  • The Turkish-held north unilaterally declares itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a move condemned by the UN Security Council and recognized only by Türkiye.

The result of the 1974 conflict was a massive population exchange. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, with Greek Cypriots fleeing south and Turkish Cypriots moving north. A ceasefire line was established, heavily guarded by UN peacekeepers, effectively slicing the island, and its capital Nicosia, in two.

Whew that was a lot of events in not a lot of words, but we’ve got a whole lot more to cover, starting with who owns what today in 2026.

Cyprus’ borders in 2026

Today, the island is essentially carved into four distinct jurisdictions:

The Republic of Cyprus (The South): This is the internationally recognized government of the island. It controls roughly the southern two-thirds of Cyprus, is predominantly Greek-speaking, and is a member of the European Union. Chances are if you’re flying to Cyprus for a holiday/vacation, this is where you’re going.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (aka TNRC, the North): Controlling the northern third of the island, the TRNC operates as a de facto independent state, though Turkey is the only country in the world that recognizes it. It is predominantly Turkish-speaking and relies heavily on Turkey for economic and military support.

The UN Buffer Zone (The Green Line): A demilitarized strip of land running roughly 112 miles (180 km) across the island. In some parts, it is miles wide, containing abandoned villages and farmland; in the heart of Nicosia, it shrinks to just a few yards wide, dividing the city down the middle.

UK Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia): When Britain granted Cyprus independence, it retained two military bases in the south. These remain British Overseas Territories. This last one is probably the least known about Cyprus. According to what I can find online, there are about 20,000 people living in these two regions, making them fairly large territories.

Now, despite the profound political divide, life on both sides of the Green Line continues in a relatively normal way.

The Republic of Cyprus in the south has a fairly robust, service-oriented economy driven by tourism, shipping, and financial services, not unlike Greece today. And just like Greece, it uses the Euro. In 2026, the Republic is making a significant push to join the EU’s border-free Schengen Area. However, this ambition is highly complicated by the Green Line. Since the Republic of Cyprus does not consider the Green Line an “external international border” (as they claim the entire island), implementing Schengen entry/exit systems there is geopolitically challenging, to say the very least.

Meanwhile, the TRNC operates using the Turkish Lira and faces international embargoes, meaning direct flights only arrive from Turkey. Its economy relies heavily on mainland Turkish aid, higher education (hosting numerous universities), and a separate tourism industry that draws largely from Turkey and, increasingly, budget-conscious European travelers willing to brave the much harder path to get in. It’s not illegal, by any means, but if you’re living in Berlin and you see a direct flight to Cyprus, it’s not to this area. You’d have to go to Istanbul first.

All this is to say, if you are wanting to visit, Cyprus is very much open for business. Despite its complexities, it’s a fairly safe region of the world to check out. In fact, as of June 2026, the US State Department dropped its travel advisory for Cyprus down to Level 1 (”Exercise Normal Precautions”), signaling that the main tourist areas are considered very safe. That’s not just for the south or north, but the whole island.

AND you can even cross between the South and North as a tourist if you want. There are nine official checkpoints, the most famous being the pedestrian-only Ledra Street crossing in the heart of Nicosia. To cross, you just need your passport. There is one caveat though: this is only possible if you enter the island from the Republic of Cyprus (the south).

According to what I can find online, you must enter and exit the island through legal ports in the Republic of Cyprus (Larnaca or Paphos airports, or southern seaports). The Republic considers entry via the North (such as through Ercan Airport) to be illegal. So, if you fly into the North, you may be barred from crossing the Green Line into the South, or face legal issues when trying to leave. I don’t know how serious this is, nor do I know what kind of repercussions there might be. But it’s just what I’ve found.

And that’s it: the world’s most complicated, yet surprisingly peaceful, yet also very much divided island! I’ve yet to go to Cyprus myself, but it’s definitely on my list the next time I hit southern Europe. If nothing else, crossing the Green Line would be an incredible geographic bucket list item to cross off.

Have you ever visited Cyprus? What did you think?

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Welcome to Free Thought Friday (or Free Thought Weekend if this comes out on Saturday/Sunday). In addition to Why Wednesday articles, this is a new opinion-focused article that will come out every Friday, Saturday or Sunday. It’ll still be highly geography focused, but it will give me (and whoever else might write it) a chance to be a little more expressive. A bit bolder. And perhaps a tiny little-bit more scandalous. Probably not the latter, actually. But it WILL be a place where we get to let our geography hot take flags fly loud and proud. So, with that said, let’s get to something that has been burning me up for a while.

I have a bone to pick with people and it’s one that will likely get me in some hot water. But it needs to be said because we keep making the same mistake over and over and over and over again. The mistake is that we, as humans, LOVE to name our places after people. People we think are meritorious in some way. People who we believe provide some recognition to an event, culture, or movement. And especially people we tend to want to curry favor with. But also people who are deeply and inherently flawed.

Let’s take a very recent example of why this is a bad idea: Cesar Estrada Chavez. Now, if you live in the United States and you live in a major city, you likely have a street somewhere named for this particular person. Cesar Chavez, if you’re unfamiliar, was a labor organizer for migrant workers in the United States. He helped lead the charge, along with Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla to help get these workers better protections and wages for the incredibly hard and grueling work they do to make sure we all have fresh food. The work these three, an many, many others did was admirable. Nobody can take that away.

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Welcome to the first edition of “Why Wednesday” the article series where I’ll be answering great big geographic why questions. As I fine tune our content release schedule here on The Bight, I’m starting to better understand what people want and a big one that has risen time and again is that people want answers. I’m here to help deliver some of those answers… with a geographic twist of course!

And for those of you worried about paywalls, don’t be. Why Wednesdays will remain free for all.

Okay, to kick us off, I want to revisit an area that has always fascinated me: southern Oregon and northern California. A region that some might better know as the state of Jefferson, but is otherwise a very different region that the rest of the west coast. Long time fans of mine might remember that I made a video about this over on my YouTube channel but it’s been a few years and I think it’s time we revisit the region. A little bit of an update, if you will. But first, before we do that, let’s dive into where specifically we’re talking about.

The state of Jefferson

Okay, so basically, this article is about a thing that almost came into existence called the state of Jefferson. Which, if you’re unfamiliar, was a movement that attempted to secede from both Oregon and California to form a brand new state (called Jefferson, obviously) in the early-ish 1900s. The plan actually gained quite a bit of momentum… right up until World War II happened and basically everything stalled out. When the war was over, there was little appetite in the country for any kind of division.

But essentially, in the modern context, this would be from just south of the Willamette Valley, just south of where Eugene, Oregon is, all the way to just north of where Sacramento, California is. And while there are people living here (over 2 million!) it does make for an interesting region given the relative population density north and south of it. In fact, you can see this on a modern day light pollution map:

Light, after all, can tell you pretty quickly where people are and where they aren’t. And while there are some light bubbles around Medford, Oregon, and Redding, California, they’re quite minuscule comparatively. So what’s going on?

Driving through here is a nightmare

Well let’s start with the obvious topographic elephant in the room. When people think of West Coast mountains, they’re usually picturing places like the volcanic peaks of the Cascades or the large and imposing Sierra Nevadas or, to a lesser extent, the coastal ranges. All of which generally run in a north-south direction. However, the region between Eugene and Sacramento is dominated by a completely different and far more chaotic system: the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains.

Unlike these, which generally have flat valleys alongside or in between them, the Klamath and Siskiyou ranges are more like a jumbled maze of ridges and canyons moving in every direction. This geological confusion creates an immediate problem for civilization:

First, building roads, bridges, and railways through non-linear mountain ranges is astronomically expensive. For decades, the area was virtually inaccessible except by perilous dirt tracks. Even today, Interstate 5 is forced into tight, steep curves and dramatic elevation changes through the Siskiyou Summit (4,310 feet). Which also means that the West Coast’s primary artery transportation can get shut down due to blizzard like conditions.

But also, because the terrain is so rugged, driving from an inland town like Ashland or Medford to the coast can take three hours or more, even though the ocean is less than 70 miles away in a straight line.

Fundamentally, this region’s topography is COMPLETELY different from the rest of the West Coast all the way up to Canada and then all the way down to Mexico. In fact, the nearest place you’d get something similar, in my opinion, is in British Columbia just north of Vancouver where, you guessed it, there also aren’t a whole lot of people.

Which leads us to the next big reason.

No natural harbors

Most major coastal cities around the world require a deep-water natural harbor to establish trade and fuel early economic growth. Seattle has the Puget Sound, San Francisco has its massive bay, and Portland sits on the navigable Columbia River and so on and so forth.

This region has none of these. Not really anyways. There is one tiny exception here, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Instead, the coastline between northern California and southern Oregon is essentially just sheer cliffs dropping directly into the Pacific Ocean, most famously epitomized by California’s Lost Coast, a region so rugged that engineers building State Route 1 were forced to divert the highway entirely inland because they just couldn’t build there. It’s a beautiful area though and you should definitely check it out.

And the few bays that do exist, such as Humboldt Bay (home to Eureka) or Coos Bay (home to… ahem Coos Bay) farther north, both suffer from fatal flaws such as shallow waters that need to be constantly dredged as well as a lack of deep navigable rivers like the Columbia connecting them to places like Medford or Redding. Basically, they’re both pretty useless for major freight shipping and logistics.

But let’s say you didn’t need a large port, and you were willing to invest in all of the infrastructure. There’s still one other problem at the heart of all this…

There’s just not enough physical space

This ties back into the infrastructure and topography a bit, but the reality is that metropolitan areas take a lot of space. At least here in the United States where we basically sprawl out endlessly. And if you look at the above map, you’re going to notice that there’s really just not that much space for a major city. A metro region the size of Portland, Oregon, which is basically the smallest on the West Coast, wouldn’t fit anywhere in that mess of mountains.

And this isn’t even considering the federal land ownership at play. Between the Rogue River-Siskiyou, Klamath, Shasta-Trinity, and Six Rivers National Forests, the Bureau of Land Management, and various other national parks and monuments, account for roughly 60% to 80% of the land in these counties is public. Just to give some examples:

• Trinity County, CA ~90%

• Siskiyou County, CA ~60%

• Douglas County, OR ~50%

Even if you had a gajillion dollars to put a city here, because this land is federally protected, it can’t be used for suburban housing tracts, industrial parks, or massive commercial centers. At least not without a major intervention by Congress which… ain’t happening. This means that the population of the region is permanently funneled into a few narrow valley floors, like the Rogue Valley (Medford) and the northern tip of the Central Valley (Redding).

This isn’t gonna change

There’s a reason why people live where they do. Why cities pop up where they do. Why we have a concentration of people and industry in specific places. It’s because there was a pull factor. Something that drew in people who then stayed and began creating new things which then pulled in more people and so on and so forth.

During the early years of settlement and colonization, these pull factors were often natural resource based. A mountain made of silver or gold. A large open valley with great soil for growing food. An incredibly deep and sheltered body of water for trade and fishing. This region all had little bits of these things, but nothing ever in a mass enough quantity to really super charge that early migration pattern. And today, after all major cities have been founded and established, there’s likely not going to be anything that really draws people here.

That’s not a bad thing, though! Personally, I think this region benefits quite a bit from a lack of major population centers. And while they certainly would have preferred more political representation in the early 1900s, had they succeeded, there’s a strong likelihood that the state of Jefferson would look radically different that the region does today.

Final thought: if you ever decide to visit, skip the I-5 journey, head up or down highway 101. It is, easily, one of the best road trips I’ve ever experienced. The sheer amount of places to stop over and just absorb the view is staggering. And don’t forget to head inland a bit too! A personal favorite place of mine is Golden and Silver Falls State Natural Area just a bit east from Coos Bay. It’s remarkable and almost nobody visits.

Have you ever visited this region? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

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Look I get it, many of you who read this GEOGRAPHY newsletter probably aren’t sports fans. Or even if you are (and you’re from the US or Canada) you’re probably not a soccer (ahem football) fan. But allow for me a minute to talk about the largest sporting event to take place at the moment. Not from a sporting perspective! No, this one is from a geographic perspective.

The world’s largest and most important tournament is happening right now. And yes, I do mean that this is larger than the NFL playoffs and Superbowl. It’s larger than the Knicks winning their first NBA championship in like 5 decades. It’s larger than any Olympics event. This tournament, the 2026 World Cup, is expected to be watched by 5.8 billion unique individuals on the planet. That’s BILLION. We’re all geography nerds here, but to spell it out that’s about 73% of the entire global population that will partake in some form or another to watch the tournament. By comparison, the 2026 Superbowl is estimated to have had a global reach of 225 million. The 2024 Olympics is estimated at around 5 billion total global viewership. That’s huge, but still well below that of the 2026 World Cup.

So, to put it mildly, even if you don’t necessarily care to watch the World Cup, or you’re not a sports fan at all, this tournament matters to so many people that the geographic implications of even being a part of it are staggering. And a large part of this is due simply because of the representation that a tournament like this gives.

Think about it for a second. There are very few ways to earn global recognition as a culture and nation in this world. You have the strictly political ways, of course, through organizations like the United Nations. But while that gives you political recognition, it doesn’t really make an impact in terms of whether people/humans/us/everyone in the world actually know you exist. To do that, you need to have a level of culture, wealth and prominence that makes people sit up and notice that, hey, you exist.

And so, for that reason, the World Cup is one of the great ways in which nations can get that kind of recognition. It’s an event that makes people look up where your country is located, who lives there, what goes on there, what the culture and food is like. For lack of a better term, it’s a HUGE moral booster for any given country that’s taking part in it.

For our story today, I want to dive into the newcomers of the World Cup. If you didn’t know, the 2026 World Cup is the first to feature an expanded tournament. In 2022, the World Cup hosted 32 national teams, but the 2026 is hosting 48. What this means in practical terms is that nations that previously would never have made it beyond the qualifying rounds (the series of games that determines who gets to actually be in the World Cup) are now given a much better chance to be represented. And this has translated into the fact that, for 2026, we have four first time participants:

• Cape Verde (aka Cabo Verde)

• Curaçao

• Jordan

• Uzbekistan

And so, to celebrate each of these teams a bit more, I want to do a bit of a deep dive on what makes each of these countries so special and why their representation in the 2026 World Cup matters.

This also means, though, that if you’re a free subscriber, you’re article ends here. ☹️ I do hope you’ve enjoyed the article and why representation matters. And, of course, if you’d like to read more and comment, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

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I talk quite a bit about droughts and lack of fresh water. As someone who lives in the west (even if its the rainier, drearier side of the Pacific Northwest) the reality is that we, as a society, simply use too much fresh water basically everywhere. The Colorado River is something that is probably immediately jumping to mind for all the obvious reasons: it’s the most talked about and its issues are the most acute.

But recently I decided to ‘dive in’ to another big and upcoming water issue. One that’s not centered around a river, but rather one of the largest and most important underground aquifers on the entire planet. This is an underground ocean of water so large that it would be larger than every single state in the United States, except for Texas and Alaska. In fact, it’s nearly twice the size of the combined size of ALL Great Lakes. Needless to say, it’s a lot of water. Or rather it was a lot of water because, as of today in 2026, it’s being rapidly depleted.

And of course this ties in nicely with my video this week all about why the United States’ geography is breaking down. You can catch in on YouTube right here:

OR if you’re a paying subscriber, check out the ad and sponsor-free video right here.

And with that, let’s get into this thing we call the Ogallala Aquifer, which is quite the jumbly mouth-full!

What is the Ogallala Aquifer?

The Ogallala Aquifer (often referred to interchangeably with the broader High Plains Aquifer system) is a vast, unconfined underground water table spanning beneath eight states: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It actually formed millions of years ago (well before humans were a thing) and the aquifer itself is essentially more of a massive sponge of gravel, sand, and silt holding ancient fossil water dating back to the last Ice Age.

And as you can tell by the map above, it’s quite expansive with the majority of its reserves lying underneath Nebraska (who knew?). But because the region sits in a semi-arid climate where evaporation often outpaces rainfall, the aquifer receives very little natural recharge. Basically: when water is pumped out, it’s effectively being “mined” with no way of replacement. Like if you mined out all the gold in a mountain, the gold won’t just naturally recharge. It’s gone… poof!

Unsurprisingly, this has been a HUGE boon for the geography of the entire United States. After all, the Great Plains has become one of the great agricultural regions of the world. Unfortunately, this also means that it’s being drained.

Watering the Great Plains

Okay, so before the mid-1900s, farming in the Great Plains was a high-risk gamble dependent entirely on unpredictable rain. This is largely the same area that culminated in the devastating and infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s, after all. Needless to say, any change in weather patterns would greatly hamper any agricultural output. This was also well before there was any serious water extraction from the Ogallala Aquifer. There was probably some but nothing on any industrial scale as far as I can tell. But that would change after the Dust Bowl and then World War II.

After the war, a couple new irrigation technologies became widely adopted: the center-pivot irrigation and high-powered groundwater pumps. This changed EVERYTHING for the Great Plains. Farmers could suddenly pull deep, reliable water to the surface, transforming the landscape into some of the most productive agricultural land on Earth.

Today, the numbers tied to the Ogallala are incredible. It provides roughly 30% of all groundwater used for irrigation in the United States. Like not just the Great Plains… the entire country. It also supports nearly one-fifth of the nation’s total agricultural output, including massive yields of corn, wheat, cotton, and soybeans. And finally, it acts as the foundation for the region’s livestock, dairy, and meatpacking industries, which rely heavily on irrigated feed crops like corn and alfalfa.

Basically, without the Ogallala, the Great Plains simply can’t sustain its current level of food production.

Which leads us to 2026…

The well is running dry

The modern reality of the Ogallala Aquifer is one of steady depletion. But because the aquifer isn’t a single open underground lake, but rather water trapped in rock and sand, it’s not draining evenly. Some northern areas, like parts of Nebraska, still have thick, healthy water reserves whereas the central and southern plains are facing a severe crisis.

Here’s some recent data points that I could find:

A 2026 report from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that following years of persistent drought, 62% of measured wells in Nebraska recorded declines. Further south, the situation is even more acute where southwest Kansas lost 1.52 feet of water in 2024 alone, marking its steepest single-year drop yet. Yikes! UNL also happens to be the location of the national drought monitor so I believe they know what they’re talking about.

Meanwhile, in heavily pumped areas like the Texas Panhandle, projections from the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology suggest that up to 70% of the area’s groundwater could become unusable within roughly 20 years at current extraction rates.

But also, the depletion isn’t just an environmental issue, it’s a financial one. A 2025 USDA study (same link above) shows a direct correlation between falling water tables and rising farm loan delinquencies. Which make sense because, as wells run dry, farmers are forced to drill deeper, increasing the energy costs to pump the water.

Finally, high-water industries are colliding with the reality of the aquifer’s limits. Massive new dairy processing expansions in Kansas are currently drawing heavily from some of the thinnest parts of the aquifer, forcing lenders and farmers to weigh short-term profits against a rapidly shrinking long-term water supply.

And so there you have it! The United States' was blessed with one of the largest underground aquifers in the world. Much like it was blessed with large amounts of coal, oil, gold, and other incredibly valuable natural resources. But unlike those other resources, this is one that we all need to survive. Even if you don’t necessarily live in the region and use the water directly, you probably do indirectly either through the food you eat or some other manufactured or industrial product that goes into your community. Which means, if this well does eventually go dry, we’ll all pay the cost in one form or another.

Do you live here? Is this something people in the region are talking about? I’d love to hear in the comments!

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It’s no secret that I travel a lot. And I’ve often wondered how can I tease where I’m at before my videos come out. I don’t really use Instagram. And by the time you all see a video on YouTube (or here if you’re a paying subscriber) I’m typically weeks away and in a whole new place. In fact, the one thing I do use regularly is this page!

So, I figure, why not try a fun photo game? Just yesterday I was criss-crossing this place for a future GeoLex video. And throughout it all, I took a series of photos that, in my opinion, get progressively more revealing as you go through. All with my beautiful face right in the mix! After all, you’re trying to find ME right?

And, of course, this is only for those of you who are paying subscribers because, well, sneak peaks are kind of the whole deal, right? But keep reading because there’s a prize involved as well. 🤠

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