The purpose of the geography quest is twofold.

First, as people have been complaining about for years, there are major gaps in content here. And, as could be believed from the idiosyncratic nature of e2, the gaps are not where they would be expected to be. Prince Edward Island, for example, has a more complete write-up than the entire state of California. I have put together a list of places that need to have something written on them. For the United States and Canada, this list is exhaustive. For the rest of the world, it is merely suggestive. In general, any nation, or top-level division of a nation should have a writeup, and should get a good bounty. The second point of the quest is for people to write about some area that they know well, or has especially interested them. While your hometown may not have the historical importance of Caracas, there is probably some special feature of geography or history that make it particularly interesting. Every small town in the world has some claim to fame.

One of the guidelines to the quest

is that writeups should be neither too dry, nor too wet. Entries should not be demographic data copied and pasted (people can get that elsewhere), nor should they consist of stories that are exclusively personal. For example, the writeup on Weiser, Idaho should not consist of this:

As of the census of 2000, there were 5,343 people, 2,018 households, and 1,368 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,280.5 people per square mile (881.6/km²). There were 2,207 housing units at an average density of 942.0/sq mi (364.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 81.13% White, 0.07% African American, 0.80% Native American, 1.20% Asian, 0.13% Pacific Islander, 13.92% from other races, and 2.73% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 22.91% of the population.

nor should it consist of this:

Weiser, Idaho is my hometown and let me tell you, it totally sucks because it is full of rednecks and other bullshit like that. The only really cool part of the town is this one quarry where you can smoke out, and sometimes if you get the jocks high enough, even they stop being redneck assholes.

Writeups should have factual information, presented in an interesting manner.

Also acceptable

for geography quest are examples of geographical concepts (such as explaining what a river, mountain or city really is), and information about cartographic or geographic methods, or biographies of famous geographers or explorers. Anything that can fit into geography can fit into this quest. The only exception I am thinking of right now is the geography of fictional places (or the fictional geography of real places.)

Especially needed:

The United States:
Alabama-Montgomery, Alabama
Arkansas
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware-Dover, Delaware
California-Sacramento, California
Boise, Idaho
Illinois-Springfield, Illinois (Which is amusing, but probably not very informative)
Indiana-Indianapolis, Indiana
Des Moines, Iowa
Topeka, Kansas
Kentucky-Frankfort, Kentucky
Maine
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Mississippi-Jackson, Mississippi
Jefferson City, Missouri
Concord, New Hampshire
Trenton, New Jersey
North Dakota-Bismarck, North Dakota
Pierre, South Dakota
Tennessee
Richmond, Virginia
Charleston, West Virginia
Wisconsin

Canada:
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Newfoundland and Labrador
Nova Scotia
Quebec-Quebec City, Quebec
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Europe:
Bulgaria
Greece
Macedonia

Asia:
India-New Delhi
Mongolia
Pakistan
Yemen

South America:
Argentina-Buenos Aires
Lima, Peru
Venezuela-Caracas

Australia/Oceania
New South Wales
Solomon Islands
South Australia

Africa
Egypt
Tanzania
Uganda

The rewards for this quest

will be a 100 GP bounty paid for every uncovered country, or top-level (state, province, etc.) division of a major country, or for the uncovered capital or largest city in that country or top-level division. Multiple bounties can be given for good writeups in the same node: we could easily have 10 good writeups on California. In addition, there will be 20 GPs rewarded for every other entry in the quest, and all writeups will earn 10 GP per C!. The quest begins September 5th, 2009 (server time) and goes until October 15th, 2009 (also server time). Our sponsoring admin will be Wertperch.

Our entries!

• America Ground, by tifrap is the first entry in geography quest.
• South Australia by tentative is our second entry, and the first off of the list
• Hundige by Dimview brings us a tragicomic story of the gentle life of a Nordic village being swallowed by global corporatism. Or maybe I just made that up! Go and read it and find out!
• A Tourist Guide to SouthEast England by tifrap, means that tifrap now is responsible for 50% of the output of the quest!
• Mount Kosciuszko by barrythefigment lets us know a thing or two about the physical geography of Australia
• Durra, Pakistan by Clone19 is somewhere outside the original guidelines of the quest, but it is so good I have to include it.
• Djurgården by montecarlo will make you wish you were in Sweden
• New South Wales by barrythefigment collects a well-deserved bounty.
• Coober Pedy by tentative fills us in more on Australia. At least the Australians have some pride and interest in their country! Jus' sayin'
• Bend, Oregon is my first entry in my own quest. I will not be collecting GP, but I did think I should participate.
• Gentilly by zulators tells us a bit about a suburb of Paris
• St. Ignatius, Montana by myself is kind of why I created this quest.
• Borley Rectory by Jet-Poop takes us to the MOST HAUNTED BUILDING IN BRITAIN.
• California, again by me, is probably not the best writeup possible on California, but I figured that sometime before we turned 10, we should have something written about California.