Wikipedia:Unusual articles
Updated: 5/20/2026, 8:11:40 PM Wikipedia source
Of the over seven million articles in the English Wikipedia, there are some articles that Wikipedians have identified as being somewhat unusual. These articles are verifiable, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are a bit odd, whimsical, or something one would not expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appear idiosyncratic. If you wish to add an article to this list, the article in question should preferably meet one or more of these criteria:
The article is something a reasonable person would not expect to find in a standard encyclopedia. The subject is a highly unusual or ironic combination of concepts, such as cosmic latte, death from laughter, etc. The subject is a clear anomaly—something that defies common sense, common expectations or common knowledge, such as Bir Tawil, Märket, Phineas Gage, Snow in Florida, etc. The subject is well-documented for unexpected notoriety or an unplanned cult following at extreme levels, such as Ampelmännchen or All your base are belong to us. The subject is a notorious hoax, such as the Sokal affair or Mary Toft. The subject might be found amusing, though serious. The subject is distinct amongst other similar ones. The article is a list or collection of articles or subjects meeting the criteria above. This definition is not precise or absolute; some articles could still be considered unusual even if they do not fit these guidelines. Each entry on this list should be an article on its own (not merely a section in a less unusual article) and of decent quality, and in large meeting Wikipedia's manual of style. For unusual contributions that are of greater levity, see Wikipedia:Silly Things. In this list, a star () indicates a featured article. A plus () indicates a good article.
Tables
· Places and infrastructure
The quasi-fictional country all books come from, according to barcodes.
The quasi-fictional country all books come from, according to barcodes.
Breast-shaped hill
Bookland
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
The quasi-fictional country all books come from, according to barcodes.
Not as unique as you might have thought.
Not as unique as you might have thought.
Breast-shaped hill
Eiffel Tower replicas and derivatives
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Not as unique as you might have thought.
Buildings prized for their uselessness.
Buildings prized for their uselessness.
Breast-shaped hill
Folly
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Buildings prized for their uselessness.
A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling up it.
A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling up it.
Breast-shaped hill
Gravity hill
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling up it.
An "island" located at exactly 0°N and 0°E.
An "island" located at exactly 0°N and 0°E.
Breast-shaped hill
Null Island
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
An "island" located at exactly 0°N and 0°E.
Like islands, but they don't exist.
Like islands, but they don't exist.
Breast-shaped hill
Phantom island
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Like islands, but they don't exist.
All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location!
All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location!
Breast-shaped hill
Pizza farm
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location!
Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands...
Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands...
Breast-shaped hill
Recursive islands and lakes
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands...
Landscaping and rocketry, together at last.
Landscaping and rocketry, together at last.
Breast-shaped hill
Rocket garden
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Landscaping and rocketry, together at last.
Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors.
Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors.
Breast-shaped hill
Spite house
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors.
An imaginary circle that contains the majority of the world's population, popularized on Reddit.
An imaginary circle that contains the majority of the world's population, popularized on Reddit.
Breast-shaped hill
Valeriepieris circle
Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester.
An imaginary circle that contains the majority of the world's population, popularized on Reddit.
| Breast-shaped hill | Laid bare in many places around the world. May have given their name to Manchester. |
| Bookland | The quasi-fictional country all books come from, according to barcodes. |
| Eiffel Tower replicas and derivatives | Not as unique as you might have thought. |
| Folly | Buildings prized for their uselessness. |
| Gravity hill | A hill that gives the illusion of objects rolling up it. |
| Null Island | An "island" located at exactly 0°N and 0°E. |
| Phantom island | Like islands, but they don't exist. |
| Pizza farm | All the ingredients of pizza, grown in one convenient location! |
| Recursive islands and lakes | Islands in lakes in islands in lakes in islands... |
| Rocket garden | Landscaping and rocketry, together at last. |
| Spite house | Various houses built solely out of spite for their neighbors. |
| Valeriepieris circle | An imaginary circle that contains the majority of the world's population, popularized on Reddit. |
· Places and infrastructure › Africa
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Abuja Airplane House
Bir Tawil
An aeroplane-themed villa in the capital of Nigeria.
One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country. An American trekked there and claimed it in 2014 as the Kingdom of North Sudan so he could make his daughter a princess.
| | Abuja Airplane House | An aeroplane-themed villa in the capital of Nigeria. |
| | Akon City | A 2000s R&B singer tried to create his very own city in his native Senegal, based around his very own cryptocurrency "Akoin". |
| —N/a | Bir Tawil | One of the few places on Earth not claimed by any country. An American trekked there and claimed it in 2014 as the Kingdom of North Sudan so he could make his daughter a princess. |
| | Blue Desert | Following the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, the United Nations gave several tons of blue paint to a Belgian artist, so he could commemorate it by painting a line of boulders in the Sinai Desert blue. |
| | Boulders Beach | A beach on the Southern African coast, near an urban residential area, known for being home to a colony of several thousand penguins. |
| | Congo Pedicle | An area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo closer to the capitals of 17 other countries than to its own capital. |
| | Dallol | A region surrounding a volcano in Ethiopia, known for its alien-looking bright colours, and populated by vast salt plains and extremely hot acidic sulfur-emitting hot springs that, according to some studies, lack even the smallest microbes. There is a now-abandoned town of the same name nearby, which formerly held the record of the hottest inhabite |
| | Gaet'ale Pond | A small lake in Ethiopia that was created in 2005 after an earthquake. It's not bitter, it's just really, really salty. |
| | Giraffe Manor | A hotel in suburban Nairobi where you can eat alongside one of the world's most endangered giraffe subspecies. |
| | Hoba meteorite | The largest intact meteorite in the world. |
| | Jacob's Ladder | It's all very downhill from here. |
| | Kalakuta Republic | A compound housing Fela Kuti, his family, band musicians and recording studio, which he declared independent and used to criticize the Nigerian military junta of the 1970s. They responded by raiding it with over a thousand soldiers, setting it alight, and throwing Fela's mother out of the window. |
| | Lake Nyos | A lake in northwestern Cameroon that released gas in 1986, killing 1,746 people. One of three known gassy lakes, the others being Lake Monoun and Lake Kivu. |
| | Lake Retba | A lake in Senegal that is naturally pink and is one of the saltiest lakes in the world. |
| | Mauritania Railway | Mauritania's entire national rail network consists of a single line connecting the centre of the country's iron mining industry with the port city of Nouadhibou. Said line is also home to the world's longest and heaviest trains, filled with iron ore and as long as 3 kilometres (1 mi) in length. |
| | Oklo | The former site of the world's only natural nuclear fission reactors. |
| | Palácio de Ferro | A bright yellow iron building in Luanda dating back to the colonial era, with no record of who built it or why – although legend has it that it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the Eiffel Tower. |
| | Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera | A rock on the Moroccan coast connected to the mainland by an 80-metre-wide (260 ft) tombolo; it is owned by Spain. In 2012, four Moroccan irredentists attempted to storm and take over the territory. |
| | Republic of Benin (1967) | One of the shortest-lived states in history, it was independent for only seven hours (07:00 to 14:00 on 19 September 1967). |
| | Socotra | A Yemeni island that is geographically part of Africa, and is known as "the most alien-looking place on Earth" due to its strange flora. This includes the "dragon blood tree" and a tree which produces cucumbers. |
| | Tromelin Island | An island near Madagascar that is famous for being the site of a major humanitarian disaster in the 18th century. |
| | The Owl House | Not the acclaimed cartoon that aired on Disney Channel; this is an outdoor museum that was created by a reclusive outsider artist who decorated her inherited house with over 300 glass and concrete sculptures of owls, camels, peacocks, pyramids, and other forms. |
| | Umoja | An entire women's-only village in Kenya established in response to violence against women in Samburu tribal society. |
· Places and infrastructure › Antarctica
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Blood Falls
Marie Byrd Land
A naturally occurring plume of saltwater that is blood red thanks to its high iron oxide content.
The largest unclaimed territory in the world. Notable for being bigger than Mongolia, having one of Antarctica's biggest human bases, and being the setting of The Thing.
| | Blood Falls | A naturally occurring plume of saltwater that is blood red thanks to its high iron oxide content. |
| | COVID-19 pandemic in Antarctica | Yes, the continent is actually affected by the pandemic. |
| | Esperanza Base | One of only two civilian settlements in Antarctica. |
| | Firefighting in Antarctica | There aren't any wildfires, but it's the windiest place on Earth and liquid water is hard to obtain. |
| | Google Street View in Antarctica | Google Street View: Available for literally all continents on Earth. |
| | Mawson Peak | The tallest mountain in the Commonwealth of Australia is not on the mainland, but on a barren, uninhabited island more than 3,800 kilometres (2,400 mi) away. |
| | McMurdo Dry Valleys | An area of Antarctica that contains an extremely saline body of water and has not experienced rainfall for over two million years. |
| —N/a | Marie Byrd Land | The largest unclaimed territory in the world. Notable for being bigger than Mongolia, having one of Antarctica's biggest human bases, and being the setting of The Thing. |
| | New Swabia | The Nazi territory in Antarctica. |
| | Pole of Inaccessibility research station | A short-lived Soviet research station in Antarctica that is now completely covered by snow – save for a small bust of Vladimir Lenin peeking out the ground. |
| | Villa Las Estrellas | The other civilian settlement in Antarctica. |
· Places and infrastructure › Asia
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798 Art Zone
San Serriffe
How an abandoned complex of military factory buildings became the heart of Beijing's modern art scene.
A lesser-known island in the Indian Ocean, subject of the April 1, 1977 Guardian.
| | 798 Art Zone | How an abandoned complex of military factory buildings became the heart of Beijing's modern art scene. |
| | Al Mashaaer Al Mugaddassah Metro line | The world's densest metro line, designed specifically to be only used by Muslim pilgrims. |
| | Aoshima, Ehime | An island where cats outnumber humans 36:1. Weirdly not the only cat island in Japan (see Tashirojima). |
| | Artsvashen | An Armenian town surrounded and controlled by Azerbaijan. One of a number of similar towns on this border; others include Yukhari Askipara, Barxudarlı and Karki. |
| | Barangay 76, Caloocan | Despite having a population of 0, there are 210 voters registered in the area, have a leader who lives in a different city and seat of government located inside a mall. |
| | Bokhdi Amusement Park | An Afghan amusement park that went viral from footage of Taliban members visiting it; it was then destroyed the next day. |
| | Bust of Ferdinand Marcos | A Mount Rushmore in the Philippines, right down to displacing its indigenous inhabitants. It was mercifully blown up by rebels in 2002. |
| | Camp Bonifas | The bunkers on this golf course feature machine-guns and landmines. |
| | Chao Mae Tuptim shrine | A shrine dedicated to penises in Bangkok, built in the early 20th century by a Thai businessman, on the edge of his property. |
| | Christmas Island | A small island and external territory of Australia close to Indonesia that is mainly known for having up to 100 million crabs migrate to spawn there every year. |
| | Dahala Khagrabari | India inside Bangladesh inside India inside Bangladesh. Formerly the only third-order enclave in the world. |
| | Darvaza gas crater | A flaming, 70 m (230 ft) wide, 30 m (98 ft) deep crater in the middle of the Karakum Desert, on fire since 1971. |
| | Dhekelia Power Station | A Cypriot power station that provides power to a British military base that surrounds it. |
| | Diomede Islands | Two islands in the Bering Strait separated by 4 kilometres (2 mi) and 21 hours' time difference. |
| | Endoji Shopping Arcade Statues | The statues of famous Sengoku period warlords which were often subjected to vandalism. |
| | Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum | A 2500-year-old museum. There can't have been that much to preserve back then. |
| | French national domain in the Holy Land | French extraterritorial properties in East Jerusalem, established by the French empire in the 19th century. |
| | Fukushima Prefecture salient | Also known as the "umbilical cord", a salient in Fukushima Prefecture, which is 8 kilometres (5 mi) long and, at its narrowest, only 90 centimetres (35 in) wide. It also follows a trail on a mountain ridge. |
| | Gangkhar Puensum | The tallest mountain nobody has ever summitted, as the Bhutanese government has prohibited mountaineering since 2003. |
| | Gate Tower Building | A skyscraper in Japan that has a highway offramp passing through its fifth, sixth and seventh floors. |
| | Hallstatt (China) | An ongoing replica construction of a town in Austria. |
| | Haesindang Park | Also known as "Penis Park", this is a park on the Korean coast, known for being full of wooden statues of penises, apparently to do with local shamanic folklore. |
| | Hanazono Room | An indoor swimming pool in Japan used as the site for many pornographic films. |
| | Hằng Nga Guesthouse | Vietnam's most fantastical building? |
| | Heihe–Tengchong Line | A line that slashes mainland China in half, creating a western 57% where almost no one lives. |
| | High-Heel Wedding Church | A glass slipper that Prince Charming would struggle to find a fit for. |
| | Immovable Ladder | A ladder against a window that can't be moved unless six separate religious groups agree to it. |
| | Imsil Cheese Theme Park | I dunno, this place seems a little cheesy to me. |
| | Jackson Hole, China | A planned resort town outside of Beijing that is based off a small town in Wyoming. |
| | Jatinga | The Bermuda Triangle of birds. |
| | Jaxa (state) | A 17th-century microstate located on the Amur River between the Tsardom of Russia and Qing China, with a population mostly consisting of Poles and Ukrainians. |
| | Jewish Autonomous Oblast | In the depths of Eastern Siberia there's a place with street names in Yiddish, even though over 99% of its current population is not Jewish. |
| | Kabul synagogue | The last synagogue in Kabul was inhabited by two men, who both ended up being imprisoned by the Taliban because they got annoyed by the two constantly complaining about each other, before later being converted by one of the men into a kebab restaurant. |
| | Kamuning Footbridge | Nicknamed the "Stairway to Heaven" for its steep height. |
| | Karni Mata Temple | A marble temple famous for 25,000 revered black rats that live in the temple who are considered the ancestors of Charans. |
| | Khewra Salt Mine | One of the largest salt mines in the world, it was allegedly discovered by Alexander the Great's horses. |
| | Kijong-dong | Two unique Korean villages, separated by the DMZ and notable for their arms race of giant flagpoles. The North Korean village contains a propaganda-blasting loudspeaker and zero residents to hear it. Meanwhile its Southern counterpart forbids residency except to families that have been there since before the War, and grows "DMZ rice" that makes the |
| | Daeseong-dong | |
| | Kirisuto no Haka | Shingō, Aomori is (supposedly) home to the tomb of Jesus. The story behind the supposed tomb is even odder. |
| | Korea Central Zoo | A zoo with such wondrous animals as a chimpanzee with a smoking habit, a parrot that sings the praises of Kim Il-sung, and dogs. |
| | Kowloon Walled City | A former enclave in the city of Hong Kong, known for lawlessness and extremely cramped conditions before it was destroyed and turned into a park. |
| | Li's field | A supposed forcefield that explains why tropical cyclones swerve away from Hong Kong. |
| | Living root bridge | Double-decker suspension bridges formed of living plant aerial roots of rubber fig trees by tree shaping common in the southern part of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. |
| | Love Land | An erotic-themed sculpture park on Jeju Island in South Korea. |
| | Maijishan Grottoes | A massive complex of hundreds of man-made caves, stairways and thousands of Buddhist sculptures carved into the side of a mountain in the fifth century, high above the surface. |
| | Masuleh | A village built on the side of a mountain in such a way that most of the walkable space in the village is on the rooftops of the buildings of the layer below. |
| | Missing Post Office | Where all the world's undeliverable post goes. |
| | Nahwa | One of only eight counter-enclaves (enclaves of enclaves). |
| | Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic | A landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan (it is surrounded by three different countries rather than only one, so it is not an enclave). |
| | Nanjie | A settlement in Henan Province that is often described as "China's last Maoist village", maintaining a collectively-owned economy and public displays and statues of historic Marxist-Leninist leaders. |
· Places and infrastructure › Europe
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Abode of Chaos
Listenbourg
An artist buys an old scenic house in a rural town and transforms it into a replica warzone that serves as an open-air museum of radical avant-garde art, angering locals enough to sue him in France's supreme court.
The European country most Americans can't point out on a map (because it doesn't exist).
| | Abode of Chaos | An artist buys an old scenic house in a rural town and transforms it into a replica warzone that serves as an open-air museum of radical avant-garde art, angering locals enough to sue him in France's supreme court. |
| | Ängelholm UFO memorial | A memorial to a reputed UFO landing in Sweden. |
| | Argleton | A non-existent town in Lancashire, England that appeared on Google Maps. |
| | Baarle-Hertog | Two municipalities, one of Belgium and one of the Netherlands, that surround each other twice and many times over. Some houses and shops are in both countries. |
| | Baarle-Nassau | |
| | Barack Obama Plaza | A motorway service area in County Tipperary, Ireland celebrating the work and Irish heritage of U . President Barack Obama. |
| | Barcelona Supercomputing Center | A supercomputer in a medieval chapel. |
| | Barentsburg | A completely Russian town, inhabited by Russians, with Russian buildings, supported financially by the Russian government, located in Norway. |
| | Barra Airport | An airport that only operates when the tide allows. |
| | Battersea Power Station tube station | A train station named after a non-train station. |
| | Beans and Bacon mine | With such little ventilation, visitors may want to avoid any source of ignition. Nearby mines are not to be outdone and have the following names: Mule Spinner, Frogs Hole, Cackle Mackle, and Wanton Legs. |
| | Berlin Brandenburg Airport | An airport in Berlin whose construction is finished but which is unfinished in other areas. Construction was finished in 2012; however, the opening date was repeatedly pushed back as the fire suppression system was installed incorrectly. It finally opened in October 2020. |
| | Bielefeld conspiracy | The Bielefeld-Verschwörung tries to hide the horrible truth about a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany that doesn't exist ... well, maybe. |
| | Brennender Berg | A German coal mine on fire since 1668. |
| | The Broomway | Perhaps the most dangerous path in the world. Would you join the hundred others who died walking the invisible path? |
| | Brusio spiral viaduct | The title says it all, really. |
| | Bucket Lake | A lake that only exists thanks to the wanton misuse of a plastic bucket. |
| | Bunkers in Albania | Enver Hoxha loved them so much he decided to fill his country with over 173,000 of them. |
| | Büsingen am Hochrhein | A German town that is fully contained within Switzerland. |
| | Butt Hole Road | A tiny residential street in the UK that was so infamous for its name that it became a tourist attraction. |
| | Buzludzha monument | A futurist monument built by the Bulgarian Communist Party that looks like a communist spaceship – especially on the inside. |
| | Carpatho-Ukraine | The third-shortest-lived state in history (see Benin Republic in Nigeria); it was independent for only 24 hours. |
| | Cerne Abbas Giant | An indecent chalk man in the English countryside. |
| | Clachan Bridge | Walk across the Atlantic in just 30 seconds! |
| | Colletto Fava | A 1,500-metre (4,900 ft) hill with a 61-metre (200 ft) stuffed pink bunny on top. |
| | Cologne sewerage system | Probably the only sewers with a Chandelier Hall that hosts music performances. Probably. |
| | Couto Misto | A de facto independent microstate on the border between Spain and Portugal that existed until the 19th century. |
| | Crinkley Bottom | An unsuccessful series of three theme parks built across England, devoted to a grotesque and horrifying BBC children's TV character from the 90s. One of them collapsed within four months of opening due to a massive and costly legal dispute with the local council over funding and liquor permits, while the abandoned site of another was demolished aft |
| | The Crooked House | A pub along the Staffordshire/Black Country border which was at an angle due to ground subsidence as a result of local mining activity, causing bottles rolled along tables to appear to roll uphill. It was destroyed in suspicious circumstances in August 2023. |
| | Crooked Forest | A grove of pine trees that are all bent in the same direction just as they emerge from the ground, before going straight back up again as normal. Nobody knows why this is the case. |
| | Cube house | A group of unusually-shaped houses designed to maximize their space. |
| | Dancing House | Also known as "Ginger and Fred" for its resemblance to a pair of dancers. |
| | Dartmouth railway station | A train station that has been open since 1864 despite no trains ever stopping there. |
| | Dry Bridge | After the river that this bridge spanned was dried up, it remained, connecting two pieces of the same field that don't have any physical barriers between them. |
| | Dumb Woman's Lane | A lane in East Sussex with a humorous name. Spike Milligan used to live there, and Paul McCartney wrote a poem about it. |
| | Ebenezer Place, Wick | The world's shortest street. |
| | Eichener See | A lake in southern Germany that only occasionally contains water. |
| | Eurobridges Spijkenisse | The generic bridges of the euro banknotes brought to reality. |
| | Father Pat Noise plaque | O'Connell Bridge bears a tribute to a priest who was as dearly remembered as he was completely fictional. |
| | Ferdinand Cheval | A postman, who, for thirty-three years, collected stones while making his rounds and used them to build a surreal Palais Idéal ("Ideal Palace") of astonishing proportions and intricate detail. |
| | Flannan Isles Lighthouse | Located on Eilean Mór, this lighthouse to the west of Scotland is the subject of an enduring mystery over the disappearance of its keepers in 1900. |
| | Forest swastika | A gigantic swastika made of larch trees that went unnoticed for nearly sixty years. |
| | Free State of Bottleneck | When occupation zones don't quite meet closely enough, you get a tiny slice of the Rhineland that acts as its own country. |
| | Fuck Tree | An oak tree in north London known as a popular place for gay sex because of its unusual shape. |
| | Fugging, Upper Austria | A village in Austria that used to be called "Fucking", but changed its profane-sounding name after years of torment in the form of stolen road signs (some of which had to be enstoned in concrete) to something that still sounds kind of profane. |
| | Galešnjak | An island off the coast of Croatia that is naturally shaped like a heart symbol. |
| | Gammalsvenskby | A Swedish village, populated by Swedes, who speak an ancient Swedish dialect, in Ukraine. |
| | Gants Hill tube station | A station on the London Underground designed to look like a station on the Moscow Metro. |
| | Graham Island | The island that disappeared. And rose again. And sank again. And rose again. And sank again. |
| | Graun im Vinschgau | This village's most proud landmark is an underwater church tower, the last remnant of the old flooded village right next to it. |