USING THIS LIST

• FINDING NAMES: Ignore words like "the", "Mt.", or "Lake." Mt. Hathor is under H, Cape Juno is under J.
• EACH ENTRY: the title links to a tour with local maps. Links inside an entry get you simple definitions.
• CAPITALS--Large or famous places are in CAPITALS.
• EAST AND WEST: on Venus, longitude is always measured east, from 0 right up to 359.
  

Cape Caccini: 18 N, 175 E

This low, ragged peninsula 700 km long and up to 500 wide reaches into Rusalka Bay like a many-fingered hand. It's on the west coast of Atla (northeast Aphrodite). The northern end of Rusalka Forest covers Caccini's many low, northwest-southeast ridges. Coral reefs line the shores of its narrow, sheltered bays. A gentle region suitable for a wide spectrum of intelligent species, including gorillas, lemurs, humans and angels, parrots and ravens, bears, wolves, leopards, and offshore, octopi. Romanskaya Bay lies to the north; the highlands of Mt. Sapas are inland.

Calakomana: 5 N, 45 E

A corona west of Aphrodite, like a grain of food almost in the scorpion's jaw. When I first built Venus Unveiled, I saw it as an island bigger than Taiwan. But a recent re-examination of higher-resolution altitude scans showed that's wrong; rather than a twin of the Isle of Kali, it's a rugged, sunken patch; probably not even reefs! Flying north and west from Aphrodite to the Eistla Archipelago now means a longer transoceanic flight, from Mt Ptesanwi four or five hours to the Farida Islands; still quite feasible. The Faridas are even visible from Ptesanwi's summit; but the snowcapped beacon of Mt Calakomana was more impressive. Oh well!

CARPO: 38 S, 0 E

One of the Alpha Islands, south of Alpha proper. Carpo's about the size of New England, but a New England in the Mesozoic: steamy rainforest with immense trees. Its west end, Carpo Corona, is a classic bull's eye with arcuate islands and peninsulas. The long east end, dominated by Tamfana Corona in its southwest, is called Cape Tamfana by Carpoans; but Tamfanans often refer call the whole island Tamfana and refer to "Cape Carpo." At the far east end, hair-thin Cape Dorothy and Cape Glinda enclose long Dorothy Bay. The cliffs of the Brynhild Fjords of western Sophia rise from the sea just a few miles off the tip of Cape Glinda.

Cauteovan Islands: 26-32 N, 140 E

A north-south chain of four slender islands up to 180 km long, in the heart of the Niobe Ocean. Their north end blends into the Ved-Ava Is. The islands are fertile, with a mild climate, but are about the loneliest in the Northern Hemisphere; the shortest flyway is 700 km from the last tiny islets of the Kamadhenu Islands far to the south. Dolphins hunt offshore, and octopi have settled the coasts, but the land is mostly empty. Solitary orangutans do live here--though the forest's a bit thin for them, they can practice their ecological religion without distractions: contemplating speciation. And hidden in the hills are several villages of winged coyotes, whose choral howls to the rings have already diverged from mainland musical styles.

Cavell Corona: 38 N, 19 E

Highest point on Kruchina (though that's not saying much), south of Ishtar. Cavell's hills form a blunt cape in northwest Kruchina, near the Isle of Xquiq. Cape Cavell is smothered in Megazoic rainforest. Just east are the similar Yaroslava Hills; to the north is Cape Sand.

Cape Centlivre: 16 N, 293 E

A spectacular cliffed peninsula in southeast Beta, Cape Centlivre looks more Martian or Lunar than Cytherean--a wildly irregular plateau, with oval holes and crescents bitten out, Centlivre rises from the sea in great cliffs running hundreds of km like a dry Niagara, intricately scalloped like the walls of a multiple caldera. If you saw only Centlivre Bay, or any of a dozen others, you're swear it was a breached caldera, but en masse it's clear they're not--some catastrophic upthrust or subsidence followed by lava floods. To the east, wedge-shaped Cape Domnika shares the pattern.

Ceres Corona: 8-15 S, 155 E

Ceres, on the north shore of Aphrodite, is a slightly subdued echo of the spectacular peaks and long lakes of Diana Chasma just to the south and east. The Ceres lakes are still large (up to 300 km long), and the Ceres Mts are (unlike most mere coronas) high enough to be dusted with morning snow, though it mostly melts by noon. And its curved ranges and valleys look more Terran than a typical coronal ring. Think Nevada with long lakes in the sagebrush valleys. Beyond Ceres to the west, the coast dries and flattens into the long low Hassttse-baad Desert.

Chang-Xi: 55 S, 25 E

Chang-Xi is in the central Lada Archipelago. It's 300 km across and shaped like a horse doing a back-flip. A ragged arc of forest wraps around a coral lagoon 50-100 km wide--the southernmost coral on Venus. The climate is mild, with light rains, mostly at night. It looks like northern New Zealand--even down to the Fuji-like volcanoes. The highest is Mt. Ndara, a steep, often snowcapped cone on the northwest shore near West Lada.

Changko Islands: 10 N, 4 E

Changko is a north-south island chain south of Eistla, in the Guinevere Sea. They're mere islets except for Changko itself, an F-shaped island 150 km across. Subtropical (shaded by the equatorial rings), with a Hawaiian climate, they're mainly known as stops on the only flyway from western Eistla to the southern hemisphere. From Eistla or Sappho to Changko to Heng-O to Dewi Ratih to Atargotis to the western isles of Fatua to the mainland of Alpha, it's as long a journey as it sounds.

Cherskaya Patera: 7 S, 236 E

Cherskaya is a C-shaped island 100 km across in the Hecate Sea, near Dhorani. The outer slopes are gentle but cliffs drop into the deep central bay, a caldera--like Thera on Earth, Cherskaya is what's left of a large volcano. There are low forests on its windy heights, but most of the slopes are grass and chaparral. 180 km south are the low Lumimuut Islands; 200 km east is Dietrich Island, a second volcano.

Chloris Bay: 35 S, 300 E

a long sound cutting off southeast Themis, Chloris Bay starts south of Mt. Tefnut and winds southwest to central Themis. Chloris Island, at its mouth, looks a bit like a small drowned corona, but the real Chloris Corona is a more substantial range of hills just northwest, on the shore of the bay. The lands around the bay are Megazoic rainforest over 100 meters tall.

Cape Chimon-Mana: 4 S, 270 E

An equatorial cape, about 600 km long, reaching west from Phoebe into the Hecate Sea. Chimon-Mana has a mild climate, forested uplands, and open woods with patches of savanna along the coasts. To the south are the Chimon Plains, a wide prairie around Lakes Isako and De Witt, which drain into Nin Bay near the tip of the cape.

CHONDI: 22 S, 240 E

Chondi is a terra (island over a million square km) west of Parga. It's largely prairie, a land of grass and scrub in the rainshadow of the Aphroditean deserts to the west. In northeast Chondi, the Atete Corona is a great bowl of prairie ringed by some of the region's highest mountains, ending in huge sea-cliffs on the north and east shores.

In the center, Aeracura Corona and volcanic Mt. Gwen are cool green ecological islands, catching rain and creating rivers feeding Lake Darlene to the west. South of the Darlene Valley are the Marie and Ndoi Hills, sparsely pine-capped. To the north are the Beruth Hills, and in the northwest is narrow Lake Chondi, 800 km long and very deep. Beyond, Cape Onenhste winds 1800 km west to Aphrodite, a low twisting ridge of dune-grass and nesting birds, ending in the wooded highland of Mbokomu Corona, within sight of the Aphrodite shore.

The southern third of Chondi is called Thaukhud ("Thou hood!"), a forest the size of France--a wide, wooded strip of low ridges cradling two long lakes, Marie and Eileen. The greenest part of Chondi is its southern tip, Cape Yonsuk, which bends east and forks into arms encircling a shallow blue hole 450 km wide, ringed by arcuate islands like D'Este. To the west are the rugged Inken Islands and Cape Sirani, low, gentle wooded land like Thaukhud.

Chubado Island: 7 N, 42

The largest of the islands sheltering Belisama Sound, off southern Ishtar, Chubado is a 200-km triangle of lush tropical forest on low hills. Along with Kostroma Island to the southeast, Chubado's one of the few parts of Ishtar in the torrid zone. It's quite steamy, though the sea winds relieve the heat a bit compared to the stifling inland jungles of Tellus or Bell. The spectacular and fragrant jungle canopy, reminiscent of Terra's "Spice Islands", is popular with avian visitors, while the long beaches on all three sides, with coral reefs offshore, make Chubado equally popular with species who like to swim.

Chuginadak Islands: 39 S, 245 E

A rather lonely island group about the size of Iceland, in the middle of the Helen Sea (west of Themis, south of Chondi, east of Imdr). Chuginadak, by far the largest, is an asterisk 300 km across, all capes and bays lined with Megazoic rainforest nearly as dense and tall as the jungles of Imdr. To the west lie the Hlineu Islands, and to the south, the Nungui Isles.

Lake Chuku: 24 S, 265 E

Lake Chuku, around 100 km wide, drains into larger Lake Hervor to the east, and thence into Mielikki Sound, in Parga. Chuku Valley is reminiscent of the southern Appalachians, with low, long ridges, hardwood groves, and warm rainy weather.

Mt Cipactli: 25-30 S, 328 E

Mt. Cipactli is low but massive shield volcano on the east coast of Dione; its summit is round and flattened, like a gigantic farrum. Its outflows form the north-pointing Cipactli Peninsula, 500 km long and 200 wide. The uplands are dense rain forest; the lowlands are open woods with some meadows, and even grasslands and small deserts on the downwind slopes of the shield. Cipactli Peninsula curves east to end in Cape Danilova, formed by an impact crater, now with a central lake. To the north are Astrid and Pugos Islands, the flyway to the Navka Archipelago; to the east are Saskia and Aglaonice, two crater-islands on the flyway to the Eastern Hemisphere: Alpha, Eistla, Lada, even Aphrodite. South of Cipactli is Innini, a wetter region of Dione dominated by tall Mt. Innini. To the west, 200 km across Nelike Bay, is Ushas (northern Dione).

Cleopatra: 68 N, 6 E

Cleopatra's a hundred-kilometer impact crater on the northeast shoulder of the Maxwell Mts, in Ishtar. Given its position, it was long thought to be a caldera proving the mountains volcanic. Nope! Lake Cleopatra, nearly half a kilometer deep, now fills the crater, spilling over into the Anuket Valley. A perfect round white disk, it's the only ice-covered lake on Venus. It's not frozen solid; but Cleopatra may be like Terra's old Arctic Sea before greenhousing, where algae supported a rich community under a few meters of sheltering ice, or more like Europa, with ice far too thick for sunlight to penetrate, limiting the biomass. Hard to tell, without knowing how hot the floor is, and to know that you have to be sure what created the Maxwells. Is it a hot spot, an overthrust, or is cool crust being sucked into a sort of subduction-funnel? How hot is it down there?

Cape Cline: 21 S, 310 E

Cape Cline is the southeast tip of Phoebe, protruding like a hangnail from Iweridd Corona. After all the Greek goddesses on Venus, you probably read that as Cape klee-NEH, but I'll give you a pronunciation hint: Cline's first name is Patsy. And her namesake resembles her--slender, blonde, and known for flight accidents. A narrow arc 300 km long, Cape Cline has tall windy cliffs, rugged uplands gold with dry grass, ponds and hollows dappled with low trees. The equally rugged Cline Islands stretch east another 200 km--they're a major flyway, linking Phoebe to the small continent of Dione to the east.

Cochran Crater: 51 N, 141 E

Cochran is a great wound in the south flank of Khadako, second largest island of the Anankes. An impact crater 75 km wide, it's one of the largest on Venus, though all but its broadest contours are hidden under thick Megazoic rainforest 120 meters high.

Cocomama Tessera: 62 S, 30 E

Cocomama is the southern half of Otygen, a large island in the central Lada Archipelago. It's a low, irregular land over 500 km across, a quilt of woods and meadows, with a mild, marine climate--sunny days, rainy nights. Cocomama's terrain looks odd to Terrans--it's tesserated, meaning regular mesas and canyons in a rough grid, with forest on top and in the canyons, red rock between. It looks like an ancient city that fossilized and was overgrown by jungle--but a city the size of a small nation. Most tessera on Venus ended up smothered in jungles or drowned undersea. Cocomama is one of the prettiest survivors. Inevitably, it'll be a major tourist attraction.

Colette: 67 N, 326 E

the largest caldera on the Lakshmi Plateau near the foot of the Akna Mts, in Ishtar. A crater two kilometers deep and over 100 wide, now with a lake on its floor. It's a warm oasis in Venus's coolest region.

Copia Islands: 39 S, 75 E

Two narrow islands, each around 200 km long, arranged like a T. The Copias are 800 km south of Juno Island off the southeast coast of Aphrodite. These pleasant little Polynesian islands, warm, lush and ringed in coral, are the jumping-off point on the flyway from the great southern archipelago of Lada to Aphrodite. The hop from Zimcerla in East Lada over the Tahmina Sea is not easy, and many travelers stay on the islands for some time, building strength for the nonstop flight.

Corpman Islands: 0-5 N, 153 E

Corpman is a flooded impact crater 80 km wide, now forming a C-shaped island near the mouth of Rusalka Bay, in east Aphrodite. Though it's the smallest island in its own archipelago, Corpman is the only one with a name--due no doubt to its spectacular appearance on radar scans. All the Corpmans are semi-arid, mostly grass and brush. To the northwest are the MUCH larger Urutongas around Budevska Sound. Due south, on the mainland, are the lakes and peaks of Ceres Corona; to the southwest, the desert hills of Hepat.

Cunitz Hole: 12 N, 352 E

An oval blue hole just off Cape Enid in southern Eistla. Cunitz is an impact crater. Unlike Lunar and Martian craters, its rim sagged slowly in old Venus's scorching climate and now is only a kilometer high; not high enough to rise above sea level, or even support much coral. During the long day, the dark crater-depths are a haven for giant squid; here their huge eyes have a hunting advantage. At night they fan out all over the Guinevere Sea, returning at sunup to tell lies about the fish they caught, huddling in their pool of darkness like early humans around a campfire.

Curie Gulf: 0 N, 65 E

The largest sound in far western Aphrodite. 1000 km long and 2-300 wide, Curie lies between the Hestia Range and the tesserated highlands of central Manatum. The long bent-back western arm is Joliot Sound; the eastern, Curie proper. The shores are warm and wooded but broken by the cliffs of the many tessera, which here form redrock mesas capped in rainforest, like Chinese landscape paintings done Arizona style.

Cybele Seamount: 6 S, 20 E : see Fatua Islands.

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