Welcome to the World's Most Awesomely Awful Places
Published 5 Dec 2017, 08:19 GMT, Updated 26 Jan 2018, 19:55 GMT

The Door to Hell is a crater in a large natural gas field that has been burning for decades.
Photograph by George Kourounis, National Geographic Creative
Ignited sulphur gas flows on the Kawah Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia.
Photograph by Sutanta Aditya, Barcroft Media, Getty Images
Workers mine sulphur in the crater of the Kawah Ijen volcano in the Baluran National Park in Indonesia.
Photograph by Andia, UIG, Getty Images
Earth’s lowest volcano on land sits below sea level at Dallol, Ethiopia. Among the crusty salt formations in its craters, hot acid pools mingle with crusts of sulphur-bearing minerals and deadly gases.
Photograph by Carsen Peter, National Geographic Creative
Lake Natron in Tanzania is coated in an alkali salt crust that colored red by cyanobacteria. It acts as a breeding site for the endangered Lesser Flamingo.
Photograph by Nature Picture Library, Alamy
The true cause of the gory colour at Blood Falls in Antarctica was a mystery until only very recently.
Photograph by Aurora Photos, Alamy
Washington state's Dry Falls was once the largest waterfall in the world, dwarfing today's Niagara Falls.
Photograph by John Elk III, Alamy
The spot where Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo meets the Catatumbo River is the most lightning-prone place on Earth.
Photograph by Jorge Silva, Reuters
Massive beams of selenite dwarf an explorer in the Cave of Crystals. The few people who have explored the unbearably hot and humid cave get a view of the world's largest crystals.
Photograph by CARSTEN PETER, SPELEORESEARCH & FILMS, National Geographic Creative
Namibia's Dead Valley, or Deadvlei, has a stark beauty filled with dead acacia trees and some of the world's largest sand dunes.
Photograph by Ton Koene, VW Pics, AP
The surprising rainbow of colours at Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring come from the bacteria that live in this extreme environment.
Photograph by Frans Lanting, National Geographic Creative