8 cities in the world with the most extreme conditions

Cities are not always located in comfortable conditions. There are the wettest, driest, coldest, hottest, windiest cities, the highest points, and the most inaccessible and isolated places.

People are social creatures. They are daring adventurers, ready to go any way in order to find the resources necessary not only for survival, but also for development and prosperity. On the other hand, they are unimaginative and lazy, making a minimum of effort and being content with the benefits of civilization. All these contradictory facts cannot fully explain the existence of such cities.

These cities are located in such places of the planet, which, it would seem, should not have been tread on a human foot. Some may well be called examples of such cities in the world, which are both attractions and places to visit, and ordinary residential areas. However, residents and visitors to cities are constantly faced with the threat of death from dehydration, loneliness or radiation.

Here are some of the cities with the harshest conditions.

Coldest city - Yakutsk, Russia

Yakutsk is the capital of the Russian Republic of Sakha. The average annual temperature here is -8.8 ° C. This temperature is achieved due to the fact that in the summer during several relatively warm months everything returns to life (despite the fact that the earth remains frozen - Yakutsk is the largest city located in the permafrost zone), and the temperature can exceed 30 ° C.

This means that during a long winter, the thermometer often drops below -40 ° C (a significant decrease in temperature in December and January - -40.4 ° C and -41.5 ° C, respectively), and the lowest temperature recorded in Yakutsk was -64.4 ° C.

In winter, 269,000 Yakutsk residents try to spend as little time on the street as possible (for obvious reasons). When they do dare to leave the premises, they need a lot of warm clothing. If it is necessary to use the car in extreme cold, you have to keep it moving all day by locking the steering wheel to prevent damage to the battery. The combination of exhaust fumes, smog and even the breath of residents forms a haze that covers the city throughout the season.

Hottest City - Kuwait, Kuwait

The intense heat and sandstorms that plague the Middle Eastern capital hit 2.4 million Kuwaitis in one way or another every year. The annual temperature averages 34.3 ° C, in June, July and August it rises to 45-47 ° C. In 2012, nearby Sulabiya set the highest temperature in Asia at 53.8 ° C (128.8 ° F).

In the summer, Kuwaitis fight the heat on the beach, at Aqua Park (the largest water park in the Gulf region) or spend time at The Avenues, the largest mall in Kuwait, where Western chain brands such as Dolce & Gabbana can be found. Footlocker Fat Burger and Texas Roadhouse.

Such relentless heat can be deadly. During the summer months, the government of Kuwait bans street work from 11 am to 16. However, the ban is rarely enforced for foreign workers - almost a third of Kuwait's population. The city is also condemned for systematic violence against foreign domestic workers who were reportedly turned into slaves. For this reason, countries such as Nepal, Indonesia and Sierra Leone have banned their citizens from working as domestic workers in the Middle East.

Driest city - Aswan, Egypt

Wandering the streets of Aswan, you can walk past crowded cafes where men smoke hookah and play backgammon, past sellers in open markets feeding pigeons (so that later they can cook an Egyptian delicacy from them - "hamam makshi"), or even see a park of modern sculpture - granite quarries, but you will definitely not face the rain.

Aswan is the world's driest city. During the year, less than 1 mm of precipitation falls here. Despite their shortage, there is still access to water. The city is located on the Nile, and in its southern part there is the largest dam in the world (High-rise dam or generally accepted "Aswan Dam"), which forms one of the largest reservoirs in the world - Nasser.

The name of the city looks like self-irony, because "aswan" is an ancient Nubian word that means "too much water". But in fact, the city was named after the flooding on the Nile River.

Wettest city - Buenavertura, Colombia

More than 6,275.6 mm of rain falls annually in Colombia's largest port city, Buenaventura. Much of the area around Golfo Tortugas (Turtle Bay) is mainly composed of huts built on stilts. Buildings farther out from the bay on the city's rolling hills are a collection of weather-eroded concrete, corrugated steel roofs and awnings, and sparse crumbling wooden facades damaged by incessant rain and damp air.

Violence, like rain, has become a way of life in Buenaventura. As the largest port city in Colombia, it is one of the largest drug trafficking centers in South America. Opponents since the civil war in Colombia (the longest continuous conflict in the Western Hemisphere) have used components of their original activities - drug trafficking, arms smuggling, kidnapping, murder, torture - in another struggle; confrontation between street gangs throughout Buenaventura.

There are three large street gangs in the city: Los Urabeños, La Empresa and Gaitanistas, which vie for control of the city. Sinaloa, a Mexican drug cartel, is reportedly behind the recent string of murders. The government has responded with army patrols in some of the poorer neighborhoods. Last year, following the publication of a Human Rights Watch report describing the horrors that take place daily in Buenavertura, the government has decisively closed many "chop houses" - buildings where gangs kept their victims for torture and dismemberment. As long as the violence persists - according to a Human Rights Watch report last month, a year after government intervention, more than 13,000 residents were forced to flee their homes under threat of violence, dismemberment continued, and disappearances remained at the same level as the year. previously..

Windiest City - Wellington, New Zealand

With an average wind speed of 29 km / h "Windy Wellington" by 11 km / h bypassed the more famous American "windy city", Chicago. Wellington is located in the "Roaring Forties" or "Wind River" zone, a meteorological phenomenon that lies between latitudes 40 ° and 50 ° in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, a wave of hot equatorial air collides with a polar vortex, and gusts of wind crash on the ground in southern South America and Wellington (as well as the rest of the South Island).

If you have a windbreaker with you, Wellington has a lot to show you (recently recognized by the Lonely Planet as one of the 5 must-see cities in the world). Here is the famous "Beehive" - the building of parliament and the office of the Prime Minister, the National Museum ("Te Papa Tongareva"), the Royal Ballet, and also pay attention to the musical comedy duet "Flying Concords".

Highest located city - El Alto

El Alto, at 4,150 m above sea level, is located on the Altiplano plateau in Bolivia. The city was founded in the early 20th century as an inconveniently located slum in Bolivia's administrative capital, La Paz, in the valley below.Since then, it has surpassed La Paz in size and population and is currently the second largest and fastest growing city in Bolivia with 1.18 million inhabitants. The world's longest city funicular last year offered the residents of La Paz and El Alto a faster alternative to the hour-long descent down the dangerous 5-kilometer slope of the canyon.

El Alto is the largest Amerindian settlement in Latin America, where 76% of the population is Aymara, 9% is Quechua and 15% is mestizo. He was the cause and source of political unrest until protective measures were taken in the form of a separation of the main highway to La Paz. These measures resulted in the ouster of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada from office and in expulsion. It also served as a major support for incumbent President Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of any country in South America.

Most Isolated City - Perth, Australia

Getting from Perth to Australia's relatively closest major city requires a two-day trek across the desert on one of the world's most desolate sections of road through the Nullarbor Plain (where there is not a single tree) to Adelaide, South Australia. This is considered such a great feat that there are even special bumper stickers to remind the driver of his accomplishments.

This isolation makes Perth seem like a culturally undeveloped backwater. You may get an affirmative answer, depending on who you ask. However, Perth hosts several international art, comedy and music festivals, and is also the city where Heath Ledger and Hugh Jackman began their careers. Perth is the hometown of AC / DC's penultimate vocalist Bon Scott; music bands Pavement and Bon Iver have recorded songs about Perth.

Whatever importance you may attach to the cultural development of Perth, it cannot be denied that the city is thriving despite its remote location from the rest of the world. It is here that the deepest diamond mine in the world is located, it boasts just 4.3% of the unemployed population and is considered one of the best cities to live in.

Hardest to reach city - Iquitos, Peru

There are only two ways to get to the Peruvian "capital of the Amazon" - by swimming or by plane. Small boats can enter the city across the Atlantic Ocean, some travel 3,600 km up the Amazon, and there are short flights from Lima, Peru or Panama. Panama serves the city most of the week. Iquitos is very remote, a very small number of cars were brought here, so the transport in the city is represented only by buses and small rickshaws. The city is famous for its quirkiness and religiosity. If you are one of the lucky ones who made it here, you can buy snake oil or live spider monkeys at the Iquitos market.