Update on March 19, 2025: This Landsat image shows fields in southern Poland that have taken on ribbon-like shapes after generations of land division. Congratulations to Annie Burgess for being the first reader to identify the location. Special recognition goes to Yaakov Gewargis for the most colorful description. Read more about the area in “Farming on the Straight, Curved, and Narrow.”
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The March 2025 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking at, and why it is interesting.
How to answer. You can use a few words or several paragraphs. You might simply tell us the location, or you can dig deeper and offer details about what satellite and instrument produced the image, what spectral bands were used to create it, or what is compelling about some obscure feature. If you think something is interesting or noteworthy, tell us about it.
The prize. We cannot offer prize money or a trip on the International Space Station, but we can promise you credit and glory. Well, maybe just credit. Within a week after a puzzler image appears on this blog, we will post an annotated and captioned version as our Image of the Day. After we post the answer, we will acknowledge the first person to correctly identify the image at the bottom of this blog post. We also may recognize readers who offer the most interesting tidbits of information. Please include your preferred name or alias with your comment. If you work for or attend an institution that you would like to recognize, please mention that as well.
Recent winners. If you have won the puzzler in the past few months, or if you work in geospatial imaging, please hold your answer for at least a day to give less experienced readers a chance.
Releasing comments. Savvy readers have solved some puzzlers after a few minutes. To give more people a chance, we may wait 24 to 48 hours before posting comments. Good luck!
That looks like Sułoszowa, Poland area where all the houses are on a main road with narrow agricultural fields stretching out behind them. Beautiful!
Sułoszowa is a small village located in southern Poland.
It’s a Linear settlement, or Linear village. Being long narrow farm properties along a single road.
This’ll be in Poland (I did have to search for that location).
There is ongoing debate on what factors influence this property layout. From being a method to spilt inheritances, a format to allow efficient farming (less turns of machinery), or that it’s a perfect shape to fit in a higher quantity of spaghetti crops.
the picture for this month is Sulozowa in Poland. Sułoszowa is a village in Kraków County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is the seat of an administrative district called Gmina Sułoszowa. It lies approximately 29 km north-west of the regional capital Kraków
Ganges Delta,
Bangladesch
In the village of Sutoszowa, Poland, all of its nearly 6,000 residents live along a single 9-kilometer street. Nicknamed “Little Tuscany,” the village has captured the admiration of many, with its layout
I think this is somewhere in Eastern Europe, perhaps Romania. We’re looking at long, narrow fields, belonging to farmers living in houses along the roads we can see. So each farmer would own one or two long, narrow fields emanating from the back of their houses.
Krivogashtani ? I think that’s the place
Sułoszowa
Romania? Linear settlement along the roads with long thin strip like fields at right angles to the roads are common in many areas where there terrain is flat to rolling.
Is there a humor category?
These are long, narrow farm plots in Italy dedicated to growing spaghetti.
Suoszowa Poland where 6 thousand inhabitants live on the same street
This is a photo of Suloszowa village, northwest of Krakow in Poland. The rectangular forest is Las Zadroski.
This is Sułoszowa in Poland. It has only one very long street (about 9 km)
This image is of the village of Suloszowa, Poland, Krakow county, located in southern Poland. This area is characteristic of strip farming which has been practiced in this region for centuries. The principal crops grown in this region in order of importance include wheat, rapeseed, potatoes and triticale. Poland is the worlds largest producer of Triticale. Image is likely from NASA’s Landsat satellite.
Farmland tracts somewhere in Poland.
Sułoszowa, Poland, isn’t just a village—it’s a 9-kilometer-long rural runway where every house gets a front-row seat to the main road and a backyard that seemingly stretches to infinity. This medieval strip farming system gives the landscape a zebra-striped makeover, with alternating bands of green, brown, and gold—each representing different crops, soil types, or the aftermath of a farmer taking a well-deserved break. The darker green blobs? Those are forests, because even nature wanted to get in on the aesthetic. This fascinating layout, preserved for centuries, is basically the world’s most organized farmland Tetris game. Likely captured by Landsat 9, this satellite imagery showcases a real-life agricultural barcode, proving that medieval farmers had some serious urban planning skills before it was cool.
Image of long lots around Suloszowa in southern Poland
A great image of the unusual farming practices around Suloszowa, Poland. The village consists of a single linear street with the fields spreading out from it.
South-East of Poland