The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

'K.

So, #1 was, we think, the largest island in a freshwater lake, and Lake Manitou was the largest lake-in-a-lake (being on that island, in a lake). I thought we made it all up, but someone claimed they actually knew it.

2. We think was Switzerland.

3. The only one I have confidence in is Tuvalu. Other than that, I don't even remember what we guessed. Buncha fake-sounding "countries."

4. Paraguay

5. Michigan

6. Kazhakhstan andh Uzbekistanh, and something to do with drying the Aral Sea up - a power plant or something.

1. Yeah, Manitoulin island in lake, in lake

2. Hard to visualize the center bc not sure where the Urals are in relation to everything else. Torn between Ukraine & Belarus. Said Belarus.

3. 2 from former Yugo: Serbia & Montenegro, said Switz as former League of Nations, Tuvalo & E Timor

4. Russia

5. Michigan

6. kzzhkzk & uuzbkh, borat & anthrax

I gotta question, though. How is an island a geologic formation?

I'm confused, because now that the whole round's over, I can't find anything that says Switzerland's right. If Switzerland's wrong, I don't see how we got 390 points.

Is there really a geographical center in Europe? With the shifting boundaries and all. Must be several claimants.

You're correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_centre_of_Europe

Yeah, I know it's wikipedia, but the other top google hits were just ripped from Wikipedia. At any rate, Switzerland looks impossible for the right answer, just to look at a map.

Now I wonder if I made some sort of dumb arithmetical mistake. I'll look over the scores again tonight. The pre and post-clue thing makes it easy to mess up, and my sloppy addition makes it pretty much inevitable.

Too late! We Win!

WeWinWeWinWeWinWeWinWeWin all the way home.

We said:

1a. Biggest freshwater island
1b. Biggest lake on a freshwater island
2. Switzerland
3. East Timor, Tuvalu, Switzerland, Serbia, Montenegro
4. Estonia
5. Michigan
6a. Ukraine and Kazakhstan
6b. diverted for agricultural irrigation

Most of those were modified post-clues. I'm still utterly stumped as to what the river was.

So if Wikipedia is right, the center of Europe if you count the outlying islands, is in Estonia. If you don't count the islands, it's in Belarus. Estonia was one of our possible second guesses (we had posted Poland the first time), but it's part of the EU, so didn't fit post-clue.

If the #1 hydro river is in Paraguay (Wiki again), it's the Parana river, not the Paraguay River. Twicki.