''Going to Extremes'' and ''Surviving Extremes'' were television programmes made for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

Nick Middleton Nick Middleton (born 1960) is a British physical geographer and supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He specialises in desertification. Middleton was born in London, England. As a geographer, he has travelled to more than 70 coun ...

. In each episode of the two series, Middleton visited an extreme area of the world to find out how people have adapted to life there. Both ''Going to Extremes'' and ''Surviving Extremes'' were accompanied by books of the same name, except in the USA where the latter was titled ''Extremes: Surviving the World's Harshest Environments''. There was also a third series, titled ''Going to Extremes: The Silk Routes''.

''Going to Extremes''

In this series, Middleton visited the coldest, hottest, driest and wettest permanent settlements in the world. ;Coldest:

Oymyakon Oymyakon, ; sah, Өймөкөөн, ''Öymököön'', is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, along the Indigirka River, northwest of Tomtor on the Koly ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

, where the average winter temperature is −47 °F (− 44 °C). ;Driest:

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the capita ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, where there had been fourteen consecutive years without rain. Fog is the only local source of water. ;Wettest:

Mawsynram Mawsynram () is a town in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state in Northeastern India, 69 kilometres from Shillong, the state capital. Mawsynram receives the highest rainfall in India. It is reportedly the wettest place on Earth, wi ...

in India, where average annual rainfall is 14 meters, falling within a four-month period in the

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

season. The rainfall is approximately equal to that of its neighbor Cherrapunji. ;Hottest: Dallol in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

, known as the 'Hell-hole of creation' where the temperature averages 94 °F (34 °C) over the year.

''Surviving Extremes''

In his second series, Middleton visited places without permanent towns, locations where "survival requires a lifestyle completely in tune with Nature's rhythms." ;Sand -

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesGreenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

: Middleton travelled with the indigenous people of northern Greenland, where four fifths of the land is permanently ice-covered. ;Jungle -

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

: Middleton visited the dangerous jungle in Congo. ;Swamp - Papua: Middleton examined how people live with very little solid land. ;Toxic -

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

: Middleton visited an abandoned Soviet biological weapons testing site with a toxic environment.

''Going to Extremes''

''Surviving Extremes''

References

Further reading