Have you heard of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands, yet? Its two main islands are named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital is Bodoni, and its leader is General Pica. The most singular feature of San Serriffe’s geography is its mobility. Due to a constant process of erosion that removes sand from the west coast and deposits it on the east coast, the islands are moving eastward at the rate of 1400 meters a year. It is anticipated that the islands will collide with Sri Lanka in 2011. To slow down this movement, boats constantly ferry sand from the east coast back to the west.
Perhaps the reason that you haven't heard of it, is that it is completely fictional. In 1977, the British newspaper The Guardian published a 7 page report with datailed descriptions of everything from the geography to the history of this entirely fictional republic. The Guardian received a lot of feedback from readers regarding the location and asking for more details. Apparently, those readers never noticed that everything about the islands were named after printer's terminology.
If you're interested in more hoaxes perpetrated throughout history, check out The Museum of Hoaxes. And remember...Happy April Fools Day!
2 comments:
Love it!
I would have fallen for it.
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