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.
  

Dafina Island: 29 N, 243 E

a green island west of Asteria, off Cape Sudenitsa. Dafina, like bigger Mawu to the north, is open forest with a few meadows. The climate's warm, mild, and maritime. Dafina's a small crater--well, more the cone of ejecta around it, a heap just high enough above the shallow seabed to make an island. There's (probably) a central lake.

DALI: 20 S,170

a rugged region of eastern Aphrodite, south of Rusalka Bay. Here the continent narrows, and is full of parallel ridges and rifts, now filled by many lakes. See Dali Chasm, Diana Chasm, the Zemina Ranges, the Vibert-Douglas Range, and Dzyzlan Valley. The lowlands are generally dry, the uplands pine forest.

Dali Chasma: 20 S, 170 E

one of the deepest rifts on Venus, with ridges rising 4 km from the floor--well, only 3 km today, as lakes up to a kilometer deep fill the valley's deepest points. The highest peaks often have modest snowcaps, since the equatorial rings shade and cool this region of Aphrodite to mild subtropical temperatures. Dali's west end runs fairly straight, but the east end makes a near-full circle south around hilly Atahensik Corona, and ends up tangled in the delightfully named Bona Corona, not far from where it began. The country around Dali vaguely resembles Nevada, with semi-arid valleys between pine-clad ranges.

Cape Danilova: 27 S, 337 E

Cape Danilova is the northeast tip of Dione, the small continent east of Themis. Danilova's named for the great impact crater at its tip, a ring of debris 100 km wide, with a central lagoon--the old crater. Just offshore are two more such flooded craters: Saskia to the south and Aglaonice to the east, each an island with a round lake in the flooded crater. Danilova looks Polynesian--forested ridges with coral reefs offshore. Danilova's on the flyway from Dione to the Navka Archipelago in the north; the next island up is Astrid.

Danne-Musun Forest: 64 S, 90 E

East Lada is split in two main masses by Mugazo Gulf, and the eastern half is often called Danne-Musun. Along its west coast run the Oshumare Mountains. The east coast is a plain covered by Danne-Musun Forest, warm dense and rainy in the north, opener in the south. To the southwest lies Cape Ambar-ona, to the east, Cape Feruk and the Flutra Islands; due south is the rather Californian Cape Mykh-Imi. North of Danne-Musun are the Geyaguga Lakes and hot, rainy Cape Zimcerla.

Danu Mts: 60 N, 340 E

a steep range on the south shore of Ishtar, 4-5 km high, bordering the Lakshmi Plateau. Lake Danu, at its northern foot on the plateau, is the highest large lake in the world; it's about 300 km long and 50 wide. The Danus are often snowy but lack glaciers, being lower and further south than the nearby Maxwell, Akna, and Freyja Ranges. Cedar and redwood cloak the southern coastal face of the Danus; the inland side, looming above the lake, is much drier; pines fill the canyons, but the north face is largely bare rock.

Cape Daphne: 41 N, 286 E

Daphne is the northern tip of Beta. It's a narrow, wooded ridge running 180 km out to sea, the last gasp of Devana Chasma's eastern ridge. The Daphne coast is lush rainforest--it's the only part of Beta in the torrid zone. West of Cape Daphne are Aigul Bay and Cape Aigul (the end of Devana's eastern ridge), then Sasha Bay. East is a wide bay and another 200-km cape, with no name (yet).

Darago Is., Cape, and Sound: 9 S, 312 E

Darago Sound is a narrow bay about 50 km long between Cape Darago and the mainland of southeast Phoebe Inland is the Aleksota Plateau, a huge volcanic pancake, wooded on top, dropping in scarps to oak foothills, with small rainshadow savannas in places. Further inland is snowy Mt Muru. Off the cape, the Darago Chain leads 250 km out to sea. These rocky islets lead to Darago Island, a small volcanic cone high enough to catch some rain--it's the only one in the chain with trees and streams. On the horizon to the south is twisting Cape Panina, equally rugged--an old lava flow? The whole region feels like southern Italy, with its volcanoes, cliffs, islets and mild dry climate.

Lake Darlene: 20 S, 233 E

Lake Darlene is on Chondi, a terra (island over a million square km) west of Parga. Chondi's largely in the rainshadow of the Aphroditean deserts to the west, and the Beruth Hills just north of Darlene Valley, but the eastern Aeracura Mts are a cool green ecological island catching rain and creating rivers feeding Lake Darlene. It's only 50 km wide, but 250 km long. The Darlene Valley is another spur of Parga Chasma. South of Lake Darlene, and also feeding it, are the Marie Hills. To the west is even larger Lake Chondi.

LAKE DAURA: 73 N, 40 E

One of the largest lakes on Venus, in northern Ishtar, northeast of the Maxwell Mountains. Daura is a marshy wedge 600 km long and 400 wide. Between the lake and the polar sea is the Daura Strip, oak-wooded inland where it rises, grassy along both shores.

Lake De Lalande: 21 N, 356 E

An impact crater a good 50 km across in central Eistla, on the long high saddle between Mt Gula and Mt Sif. The crater has flooded, forming a scenic, deep blue, high-altitude lake. To the south are the Marie-Jeanne Canyons.

Lake De Witt: 6 S, 271 E

A marshy lake with many islets, 250 km wide, on the prairies of West Phoebe. De Witt and its southern twin Lake Isako both drain west into Nin Bay. De Witt Crater, for which the lake was named, stands near its east shore. The reedy lake inside this impact crater is called De Witt Pond to distinguish it, though this "pond" is a good 25 km wide.

Cape Degu: 32 N, 290 E

A blunt, low, subtropical, forested cape 150 km long jutting from Beta, just south of deep Aikhylu Bay. Offshore is long Zirka Island.

Dekla Islands: 58 N, 75 E

1) a long island arc, stretching from east Ishtar to Tellus. The Deklas are Indonesian in climate, densely forested down to the beach. They're small by Cytheran standards: the largest, Allat, is only 200 km long.

Deloria Bay: 32 S, 97 E

A narrow bay 300 km long, just below Cape Juno in southwest Aphrodite. To the east is Cape Gefjun, a partly drowned corona; to the north, Juno Chasma and the Husbishag Hills. West are the twin fingers of Cape Juno itself, with a deep sound between them, and then the Sri Lanka-sized Juno Island. To the south is open sea; southwest is Deloria Island, a forested wedge 200 km long, ringed with coral reefs and beaches.

Cape Demvamvit: 65 S, 35 E

an almost-island 200 by 320 km across, in the central Lada Archipelago, west of Toyo-Uke. Demvamvit, a low corona, is linked to Toyo-Uke by a single slender ridge. The climate's rather Californian, with mild sunny days and night fogs feeding drip-forests. To the west is Seo-Ne; due north is Tsects; south, Okhin-Tengri.

Deobako: 67, 119 E

An island east of Lada, part of the Flutra Chain. Deobako, about 100 km across, is the center of the chain. The Ruads and volcanic Angrboda lie due south; to the north is Latmikaik, to the east, lonely Katl-Imi, and to the west, Flutra itself, by far the largest. The climate's Mediterranean--grassy shores give way to wooded hills inland.

D'Este: 31 S, 242 E

D'Este is an arcuate, slender island 120 km long off Cape Yonsuk, the southeast tip of Chondi, in the Helen Sea. D'Este is a single steep ridge rising from the sea, cliff-edged, warm, and densely wooded. It's inhabited mostly by arboreal species, with cliffdwelling sphinxes along the coast.

DEVANA CHASMA: 35 N, to 10 S, 285 E

a north-south chasm, one of the longest and jaggedest on Venus, dominating two continents--Phoebe and Beta. The Devana Mts are the spine of western Phoebe, and the chasm nearly cuts Phoebe in two. As Devana generally cuts across prevailing winds, its ridges block rain, and much of the chasm floor is desert. But some parts dip so low they've flooded--equatorial Lake Devana is some 300 km long and 60 wide, nestled in a steep, red-walled canyon 2-3 km deep, fed by mountain highlands east and west. Further north, the chasm crosses a strait, then re-emerges to form the twin Devana Capes and Devana Bay at the southern tip of BETA. The chasm crosses Beta all the way to its north coast, giving Beta a mountainous spine with a deep and often spectacular rift valley, nearly rivaling Diana and Dali Chasmas, in central Aphrodite.

Devoguilla Bay: 15 N, 7 E

A sound 100 km long at the southeast tip of Eistla, formed where the twin ridges of Guor Chasma slip under the Guinevere Sea. To the east are the Devoguilla Islands.

Devoguilla Islands: 15 N, 8-12 E

An archipelago just east of Eistla and west of Sappho; a flyway between the two terras. The isles are probably parts of the ridge-structure of Guor Chasma. The largest of the Devoguillas is about 80 km long. All are open woods and meadows; mild, warm country.

Dewi Ratih: 6 S, 2 E

The biggest island in the Heng-O group, in the Guinevere Sea. Dewi Ratih is a rugged island 180 km long--the flanking ridge of an undersea chasma. The climate's very Hawiian, with patches of rainforest on upwind hill-slopes and pocket deserts downwind. Dewi Ratih is a stepping-stone on the flyway from Alpha to Eistla. Smaller Atargotis lies 500 km southeast, toward the Fatua Archipelago.

Dhisana: 14 N, 112 E

An oval island 200 km wide in the Niobe Ocean off Thetis (north-central Aphrodite). Dhisana's the westernmost of the Gegute Islands, a tessera field. Dhisana's a maze of deep, winding, shady, wooded canyons below grassy mesas, with cliffs as steep and surreal as a Roadrunner cartoon. Coral reefs line Dhisana's shore. Due east are Adzoba, then sinuous Allatu and cliffy Merit and Ptah.

Dhorani Island: 9 S, 242 E

Dhorani, in the Hecate Sea east of Aphrodite, looks like Ireland--a grassy 500-km oval with a great marshy lake in the center. The weather's better, though--Dhorani's equatorial. On a planet where coastlines seem willfully fractal, Dhorani is a simple patch of warm, fairly fertile land. It's drier than many islands in the Hecate Sea, but the hills around its rim, particularly in the north, are quite green. To the northeast are low, dry, nameless islands; to the northwest, tall Dietrich and Cherskaya Patera, an old volcano-rim cupping a crater-bay. To the southeast is grassy Storni. Due south, over the Dziwica Channel, rise the spectacular Atete Cliffs of Chondi.

DIANA CHASMA: 12 S, 160 E

One of Venus's most scenic spots--one of the deepest rifts on Venus, with ridges that once rose 4000 meters from the floor. Today they're little more than 3000, as lakes up to a kilometer deep fill the valley's deepest points. The slopes are dry, forming red cliffs in many spots. Diana's near the equator in central Aphrodite, but a few of the highest surrounding peaks are sometimes dusted with snow.

Dickinson Islands: 75 N, 180 E

The western tip of the Surupa Archipelago stretching halfway round the arctic west of Metis and Ishtar. There are four main isles, none over 80 km long and 20 across, clustered around flooded Dickinson Crater, now a blue hole inhabited by giant squid. To the east are the much larger Molpe Islands. The climate's cool and fairly dry--fog clearing to low sun through the long days, and light rains at night. Most inhabitants are ravens, wolves and bears; the culture resembles the Pacific Northwest, with sculpted wood villages and elaborate masked dramas during the long dark nights.

Cape Didilia: 15 N, 30 E

Didilia Corona creates a hilly, irregular cape 250 km across at the northwest end of Pavlova, a near-continental island in the Eistla Archipelago. The Didilian Hills are cloaked in dense subtropical forest, the thickest on Pavlova. To the west, island chains lead to Asomama and Sappho. Just offshore to the north is strange little Karo Island, a flooded impact crater. To the southeast is central Pavlova Corona itself.

Dietrich Island: 7 S, 238 E

Dietrich is a lone volcano rising from the Hecate Sea, near Dhorani. Dietrich has low forests on its windy heights but is mostly grass and chaparral. It has a big sister, Cherskaya Patera, 200 km west.

Lake Dilga and Dilga Strait: 20 S, 250 E

Lake Dilga, some 300 km long, is the westernmost lake in Parga Chasma. To the east is Lake Galindo. Dilga Strait, 250 km further west, divides Chondi and Parga. Lying in the rainshadow of the Chondi's high Atete Mts and Parga's Lalohonua Plateau, the shores are rather dry and rocky, the inland plains, savanna. The strait's full of rocky islands and sounds, resembling Greece's Aegean Sea in size and character.

DIONE: 30 S, 327 E

Dione is a fertile continent half the size of Australia, west of Alpha and east of Themis. It's a (very rough) C-shape, around central Dione Bay. The northern two-thirds are warm, mostly forested lowlands, punctuated by volcanoes, notably Mts Nepthys in the west, Ushas in the north, and Innini in the east. South of Innini is the Hathor Peninsula, a dense hardwood rainforest in the heart of the Megazoic zone. North of Dione is the long Navka Archipelago; southeast is the small but lush Hippolyta Chain.

DISANI region: 8 S, 54E

1) Cape Disani, Disani Bay: off northwest Manatum (western Aphrodite). Cape Disani's part of the tongue between the scorpion's jaws. The cape's about 350 km long, and helps enclose Rae Sound to the east. Disani Bay is a sheltered, shallow sound 200 km wide, southwest of the cape.

2) Disani region: By extension, all the land between Rae Sound and Cape Salus is often called Disani. Twice the size of France, the country's hilly, forested, and warm. Tessera cover much of the land--steep little ridges, fins, and whalebacks. Finger lakes and short streams fill a maze of canyons between them.

3) Lake Disani, 400 km long, lies in a narrow, deep, north-south gash that bites straight into the highlands of Disani, then dead-ends. Scarps rise from the lakeshore on both sides, like a fjord. A monster fossa? A very straight chasma? Be the first to find out.

Discordia Island: 60 S, 240 E

Discordia, 150 km long, lies northwest of Ishkus in the southern Helen Sea, offshore from the Dou Mu Tessera. Discordia is just the high point of a maze of ridges and arcs stretching 2000 km north--a tiny dorsal fin on a very large whale. Despite its name, Discordia's a pleasant land with gentle hills, mixed woods and meadows, and a California climate.

Dix: 37 S, 329 E

Dix Island was formed by a large impact crater, off the east coast of Hathor, in Dione, the small continent east of Themis. Dix is 150 km long, shaped like a tadpole with a large head and a northeastern tail. The central lagoon, the old crater, is quite deep. There are only half a dozen such ring-islands on Venus, yet three of them are nearby, to the north: Saskia, Danilova, and the largest of all, Aglaonice. Except for its origin, Dix seem rather Polynesian--rainforested ridges with coral reefs offshore. Dix is one flyway out to the Hippolyta Islands, a long line starting 300 km to the east.

DOLYA: 8 N to 12 S, 295 E

Northeast Phoebe, straddling the equator. Dolya is the Slavic name for Lady Luck. The portion north of the line is often called Nedolya--the Lady of Rotten Luck. Though surrounded by sea, Dolya's fairly dry; spurs of the Devana Range (ending in Mt. Vostruka) wind down the west side of Dolya, creating semi-arid lowlands in the east. Some inland valleys are true deserts, though small ones, and not too hot: Dolya's shaded by the equatorial rings. The uplands are cool and support pine forests--the highest peaks even see frost, and occasional snow. The broad lowlands are tesserated--endless grassy mesas cut up by a regular meshwork of canyons, with open woods and shallow streams. Picture thousands of Mesa Verdes--red and gold cliffs and caves and springs, above green groves and meadows. It looks like an ancient, heavily dissected steppe... but these mesas are from crustal stretching and squeezing, not erosion, which only became significant a few centuries back--within living memory.

Domnika Peninsula: 18 N, 298 E

A dramatic cliffed peninsula in southeast Beta, Cape Domnika isn't quite as Martian-looking as its western neighbor Centlivre, but it's still bizarre. A jagged wedge of plateau, Domnika rises from the sea in great cliffs running hundreds of km--the result of some catastrophic upthrust or subsidence followed by lava floods. The cliffs continue north around Gulchatay Bay, but Grizodubova Island just offshore is gentler.

Cape Dorothy and Dorothy Bay: 37 S, 8 E

A hair-thin cape at the east end of Carpo, one of the Alpha Islands. Dorothy is over 200 km long and only 10 wide. Cape Glinda, paralleling Dorothy to the north, is even longer. Between them is Dorothy Bay, 120 km wide, 250 long--a shallow coral sea cut by narrow north-south veins of deep water--underwater gashes called the Brynhild Fossae. The cliffsides of the fossae form spectacular vertical undersea gardens off Cape Glinda, and just to the north, on western Sophia, the fossa walls surface, forming dozens of tropical fjords.

Dou Mu Tessera: 60 S, 240 E

The northwestern part of Ishkus, a heart-shaped island in the southern Helen Sea, the size (and climate) of California. Dou Mu is a maze of polygonal mesas of chaparral above canyons of oak and redwood. To the east is Lake Ishkus, a crescent 120 km long. To the south is Seiusi Corona, a blunt peninsula with a modest central lake, oak hills and meadows, and a few redwood groves in the coastal valleys.

Cape Drolma, Drolma Island: 24 N, 6 E

Cape Drolma (properly Drölma, but who knows how that umlaut will look to your browser or search engines?) is a peninsula 200 km long, forking northeast from Mt. Gula, in Eistla. Offshore lies a steep volcanic island also named Drölma. Just to the north is Cape Idem-kuva, northern tip of Eistla, and to the south is smaller Cape Annia, also with an island off its tip, Faustina. Drolma's wooded and the uplands are cloud forest; Annia is somewhat drier.

Dudumitsa Sound, Cape Dudumitsa: 15-20 S, 0-5 E

Cape Dudumitsa is the northern tip of Alpha; it continues as an undersea ridge far west into the Lavinia Sea, re-emerging as the Tumas and Dudumitsa Islands, a major flyway to Venus's Western Hemisphere--indeed the only nonpolar route. The Cape shelters Dudumitsa Sound, a chaotic maze of fjords extending 600 km inland, nearly meeting Peggy Sound and Virga Sound. The foothills are warm, the uplands cool and mild. The western slopes are wooded; the eastern, mostly grasslands.

Dylacha: 22 S, 70 E

A large island south of Tawera Bay, on Aphrodite. Dylacha is a rugged, scenic triangle over 500 km wide, with a heavily indented coast--mostly cliffs rising from deep water; creating vertical coral gardens. Ruit Bay in the south is the largest bite out of the triangle, but not the only one--Dylacha's riddled with little bays, cenotes (giant wells) and abrupt little winding canyons--a strange split-level country, like Cape Centlivre off Beta. There's a halo of lesser isles--a nameless string of long cliff-ridges off the northwest shore, the Rosna Tholi in the south, and Nishtigri in the west. Dylacha's climate is mild, with wooded canyons and grassy plateaus. To the west, past Nishtigri, are the equally rugged Xiwang Mu Islands leading to Alpha. To the east is lonely, steep little Narina Island, then the Emilias off Cape Juno on the Aphroditean mainland.

Dzalarhons: 0 N, 35

An island 1000 km long, off Aphrodite's west coast. Dzalarhons is pronounced more like "doll a roans" than "dollar Hans." The size of Great Britain, Dzalarhons is a conglomeration of three very different terrains: in the southeast is an extension of Gbadu Tessera, a regular net of mesas and canyons centered on Gbadu Island east of Dzalarhons. It's not desert and they aren't erosion features--the mesa tops are grassy, even savanna, and the canyons are now forested creeks or finger lakes. Central Dzalarhons is a great lava flow, the Nekhebet Fluctus, now overgrown with open woods. It came from the north, from Mt. Dzalarhons, a volcano making up over a third of the island. The coast is subtropical; the higher mountain-slopes are temperate, seeing regular frost, and the summit is high enough (the highest in the region) to see occasional snow.

DZERASSA: 20 S, 300 E

1) The irregular Dzerassa Sea separates Phoebe, Parga and Themis; it opens to the Navka Sea to the east.

2) Dzerassa Bay, a 1000-km-long northern finger of the Dzerassa Sea, nearly splits Phoebe in two, reaching almost to the equator. Ringed by mountains casting rainshadows, it resembles the Red Sea on Earth, with desert shores, especially in the west where the Devana Mountains drop sharply into the sea. The east shore is greener and gentler, mostly semi-arid grasslands.

Dziwica Islands, Dziwica Channel: 13 S, 235 E

The Dziwicas are off southeast Aphrodite, in the Hecate Sea, just north of Cape Chondi. Roughly pronounced "divitsa," it's an undersea ridge paralleling Chondi that breaks the surface now and then. The large western island is Barnes; the eastern, Erkir. A long chain of islets, the Hollas, stretch further east. In a few centuries, the growing coral reefs in the shallows along the ridge will make Dziwica a diver's mecca, enlarge and unite the Holla Islands, and perhaps link Barnes and Erkir too. Dziwica Channel, just south of the islands, is a deep trench, a spur of long Parga Chasma. The north shores of the islands also abruptly drop off, into a round blue hole: Toma Deep.

Dzuzdi Island: 37 N, 22 E

A volcanic island about 80 km across, just west of Kruchina, in the Bereghinya Sea south of Ishtar. Dzuzid is much like neighboring Becuma and Xquiq--hot, jungly, and rugged.

Dzyzlan Valley: 20 S, 180 E+

a sinuous range and chasm in southeast Aphrodite, north and east of Henwen Steppe and Poranica Bay. Dzyzlan is hook-shaped like nearby Dali Chasm, though lower and gentler. The lowest part of the chasm holds Lake Dzyzlan, about 350 km long and 50-100 wide, the largest in the region. The Dzyzlan ranges eventually blend with the Vibert-Douglas Mts, to the east. Dzyzlan is pronounced just like it's spelled. (OK, OK! Sorry. It rhymes with "sizzlin'." Happy?)

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