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The Major Regions of Mars.

We are going to build off what we learned in episode 1 and start familiarizing ourselves with the Major Regions in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars.
The problem with these regions is the borders are not precisely defined, and that is why referring to the Mars Charts will be a big part of this series.
So let’s start with this northern strip on MC-1 that surrounds the north pole.
This is the Vastitas Borealis region.
It’s proximity to the pole makes it easy to remember.
It’s also worth noting that this is where the Phoenix lander is located, a little bit north of the northeastern tip of MC-2.
Now let’s go south to MCs 2 and 8, which contain the Arcadia and Amazonis Planitias or plains.
These plains were formed by free-flowing lava flows around 100 million years old, making the regions among the smoothest and youngest areas on the planet.
Let’s bring in the United States on the map to help get a sense of the scale of what we are looking at.
Okay, on to MC-3 to the Alba Mons region.
The best way to think of Alba is that it’s the northern tip of the overarching Tharsis bulge or Tharsis rise region.
At 6.8 km, Alba is a shorter volcano for Mars standards but is still 800 meters taller than Mount Denali, which is the tallest peak in North America.
MC-3 also contains the majority of the Tempe Terra region.
The most notable thing to remember about Tempe Terra is it contains the northernmost portions of exposed ancient highland crust on the planet.
Okay, east of Tempe Terra lies two plains; the Acidalia and the Chryse.
Acadalia is large extending well into MC-5, and should be easy to remember because it’s where Matt Damon was stranded in the film, The Martian.
Alright and the Chryse region is easy to remember for several reasons.
First is its distinctive circular shape, being surrounded by the Arabia, Tharsis, and Tempe Terra outflows.
And second, as discussed in episode one, Chryse is the region where the Viking 1 probe landed on the western edge of the region.
Now, heading east, we have the vast Arabia Terra that occupies spaces of six Mars Charts to varying degrees.
An easy way to remember this region is you can view it as almost the heartland of Mars.
It extends as far west as MC-11, falls south into MC-19, and reaches northeast as far as MC-5.
What’s more, Arabia Terra is the home to the legendary Opportunity Rover.
And flanking Arabia Terra on the east is Terra Sabaea that has a similar size and roughly the same shape as Arabia.
This is a big if, but If humanity manages to terraform Mars in the distant future, Terra Sabaea could someday be one of the most desirable lands on the planet.
Its relatively flat for southern highlands standards and would be surrounded by valuable coastline.
Now let’s head east to the Utopia planitia.
This is the major Northern Plain region that is probably the easiest to remember because of its name, and it contains the distinctive Utopia Basin.
The Utopia Basin is massive at over 3,300 km wide.
Another interesting thing about the regions is that it is the location of the Star Trek Federation Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, which is where the USS Enterprise-D was constructed.
South of Utopia is the Elysium Region that, for the most part, is situated in MC-15.
The region consists of Elysium Mons and Elysium Planitia.
Elysium Mons is the fifth highest peak on Mars at almost 14 km.
And the Elysium Planitia is distinctive because it is the only major plain located in the transition zone.
And to the southeast lies the Tharsis Montes, which is very straightforward to remember as it consists of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tallest peaks on Mars.
There’s Ascraeus, Arsia, and Pavonis, all three taller than Elysium that we touched on earlier.
So we touched on this earlier but to reiterate, Tharsis Montes is just a sub-region of the overarching Tharsis Province that extends well into the southern hemisphere, which we will go over on the next episode.
And to the East of Tharsis Montes is the Outflow Channels region.
Referring to this region as the Outflow Channels is somewhat common, but it’s not formally recognized, but it perfectly illustrates the characteristics of the region.
So the Outflow Region encompasses the Lunae Planum and Xanthe Terra regions that are both largely outflow channels connecting the Chryse Planitia to the highlands.