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The real location of 10 iconic wallpapers that you've probably seen

Geography

Image: Spencer DeMera

Image: Spencer DeMera

From the world to your screen

The real location of 10 iconic wallpapers that you've probably seen

Some landscapes have adorned our desktops for so long that it almost feels like we’ve been there already. At some point or another, almost everyone has seen Windows XP's rolling green hill under a blue sky. These famous views are now ingrained in our memories, and they look so generic that we forget they are actual locations from around the world. Let’s set the record straight and find out where some of these iconic photographs were actually taken.

A classic star of Windows XP wallpapers, the photograph known as "Bliss" (originally "Bucolic Green Hills") was taken by Charles O’Rear in front of a green rolling hill in Sonoma County, California. It went on to become one of the best-known photographs on the internet.

This hill had originally been a vineyard, but an infestation forced the owners to clear it years earlier. In the end, the dreamy landscape reached more people than its crops ever could have.

It looks like the fabric of a flowing flag, but it’s the interior of Antelope Canyon, located on the Navajo land in northern Arizona. Flash floods carved and smoothed those narrow and deep walls over thousands of years. Its sun-painted curves look so peaceful that many people still choose this as the landscape they’ll see every day.

Many Apple computer users from around the world had never seen the beauty of El Capitan and Half Dome’s peaks until this was made the default background for the operating system OS X Yosemite.

This gorgeous landscape from the California Sierra Nevada Mountains is perfect because it features clean lines, gentle colors, and the sense of magnificence and quiet that only an adulterated nature can provide.

The Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, is home to one of the oldest constructions of our planet: Stonehenge. Those massive stones, some weighing up to 25 tons, were transported from miles away and have stood for roughly 5,000 years.

A captivating mystery, certainly, but also a striking landscape with contrasting colors and clean, simple lines; sounds perfect for a desktop background.

A nocturnal blue sky featuring a large full moon was another popular choice for Windows XP wallpapers. Although many people believed the snowy peak belonged to the Japanese Mount Fuji, it was actually an image of Mount Rainier, the glorious stratovolcano located in Washington State.

The moon appears unusually prominent in the composition of that one famous photo. It led to claims that it had been digitally altered, but no definitive evidence ever confirmed the rumors.

One of the most epic and grandiose images featured in Microsoft Windows backgrounds showed what appeared to be a fortress wall seemingly sticking out of the clouds. It looked like something out of a movie, but it’s actually a photograph of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe in Spain.

This rocky islet is connected to the mainland by a narrow stone bridge and a staircase of roughly 240 steps. At its summit stands a hermitage from the 10th century. The landscape was also famous for appearing as "Dragonstone" in the TV series Game of Thrones.

Many nostalgic users picked an aisle of autumn-colored trees. The famous crimson-and-gold wallpaper picture was taken in Burlington, Canada, a city on the shores of Lake Ontario. Who would have guessed that an unassuming scene of the city would become one of the stars of Windows wallpapers?

Some people find the vibrant, arid sands of the Namib Desert to be their favorite landscape. Sossusvlei lies among some of the tallest dunes on Earth, a few of them rising over 1,000 feet, with iron pigments that have been oxidizing for millions of years.

Here, you get the pale blue of the sky, apricot-orange dunes, and sharp, ink-black shadows, an ideal composition for a striking desktop background.

Those massive rock arches rising from the surf are the Archway Islands, right on Wharariki Beach, facing the Tasman Sea. This landscape from the north of New Zealand’s South Island became one of people’s favorite screensavers thanks to a glorious picture taken around sunset from inside one of the caves under the hills.

The Valensole Plateau in Provence, France, transforms each summer into a grid of lavender fields that seem to stretch to the horizon. These neat, geometric rows of purple lit by a dry, bright sun are a mesmerizing sight.

Looking at those lush, straight lines makes you feel like your whole computer is just as orderly. Repetition is soothing.