r/geography • u/Ok-Palpitation9389 • 1d ago
“London sits at the centre of the world today because it placed itself there when it drew the prime meridian, where east meets west”… Where do you think of as the centre of the Earth? Discussion
All roads lead to… London?
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u/CoolBaba123 1d ago
Crossing a ferry from asian to european side of Istanbul at sunset embodies this feeling. Islam, Christianity, europe, asia, etc.... It feels like the crossroads of the world
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u/2klaedfoorboo 23h ago
Istanbul to me is definitely the centre of the old world but I think London takes that throne with the emergence of the Americas- also demographically London is probably one of the cities most reflective of global demographics
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u/MallornOfOld 14h ago
London always had a big white, black, Middle Eastern and South Asian presence racially. But with the influx of Hong Kongers, it now has loads of East Asians too.
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u/mrrobertreddit 1d ago
Felt this too when I was there. There's something special about that crossroads
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u/olssoneerz 22h ago
I rented a unit in Koruçesme(?) a few years back that had a huge window looking out to the Bosphorus.
IDK why but waking up in the European side looking out to Asia for a week was romantic AF.
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u/RasputinXXX 1d ago
Herold credits this to Las Cases, Mémorial (6 Nov. 1816):
“The Emperor again fell silent, measuring distances on the
map with his calipers and asserting that Constantinople was by its situation
the center and seat of universal domination, etc,
Herold, J Christopher. The Mind of Napoleon. (1961). P. 202.I copied from r/AskHistorians
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u/dman45103 1d ago
I wish I felt that. Just felt like two sides of a city of a city to me. Not really two different continents
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u/AdmyralAkbar 1d ago
London is a convenient middle 'cause it splits the pacific ocean in two
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u/ablablababla 1d ago
It can be pretty much anywhere in Europe and still split the Pacific Ocean in two though, no?
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u/BvG_Venom 1d ago
Yeah, but it also divides Siberia and Alaska rather nicely.
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u/Mobius_Peverell 12h ago
It doesn't, actually. It's too far west, so it cuts a significant chunk of the Russian Far East off. To split the Bering Strait, the Prime Meridian would need to be between 11° and 12° farther east—Florence or Munich would work.
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u/Vernacian 22h ago
It could indeed, Paris was also a contender.
But the quote at the top of this post seems to miss that London would be no less conveniently situated for trade with both east and west with any meridian based in Europe, not just London itself.
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u/LupineChemist 14h ago
There's also an element of Human geography in that the British empire was just much wider globally and there was a port there for people coming and going from everywhere.
Honestly I'd say second likely contender would have been Lisbon. Really I'd say we have Napoleon to thank for Portugal not being one of the most influential countries in the world today by forcing the Portuguese royal family to basically make Brazil home base.
UK avoided a lot of the internal political chaos of the 19th century which sort of made it the center of a lot of academic pursuits and gave influence over this sort of thing.
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u/AntiMatter138 1d ago
Coincidentally at that time they had the biggest empire and we are using their language as universal.
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u/stefan92293 1d ago
"Coincidentally"
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u/larkymasher 22h ago
The coincidence here is that the city that was the centre of the largest empire is in a convenient location (opposite the Pacific) for making a map
Not that we all speak English as a random coincidence
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u/-Space-Dementia- 20h ago
Meridian 11.023 would be a better middle because it is the exact antipode of the Siberian-Alaskan frontier. And being the Ecuador the center of the earth, I think it can be argued that the center should be somewhere in Gabon.
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u/Quinnalicious21 1d ago
Because it’s a vast expanse of ocean that depicting front and center skews most of the worlds landmass and population to the sides
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u/foolofatooksbury 1d ago
Did a fish write this
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u/ReadinII 1d ago
How is splitting the pacific ocean in two "convenient"? Convenient for who?
Convenient for everyone whose community isn’t split by the International Date Line.
And because of the Greenwich Meridian’s location, it was trivially easy to draw the International Date Line so that it doesn’t split any communities.
So it’s convenient for everyone.
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u/ArtisticPollution448 1d ago
Pick a line that inconveniences the fewest people. Hard to beat the middle of the Pacific.
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u/Exploding_Antelope Geography Enthusiast 1d ago
Convenient for everyone who doesn’t live there, which is almost everyone, to not have their part of the world cut in half by a map projection
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u/nikolapc 1d ago
Well, all roads lead to Rome.
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u/Potential-Decision32 1d ago
Seriously, not some rainy island north of France.
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u/OldManLaugh Cartography 22h ago
Well. You could argue all boats go to Britain seeing as they’re next to the busiest shipping lane in Europe, and boats are more important than horses nowadays. Plus, France had Napoleon which sort of soured their reputation. I know this is a geography sr but history is just so intertwined with this subject.
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u/MallornOfOld 14h ago
I would say, nowadays, more important that horses or boats are financial flows. London is the biggest financial center in Europe by a very long way.
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u/nikolapc 21h ago
They don't cause you're forgetting the Mediterranean which is literally the center of shipping for 3 continents.
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u/OldManLaugh Cartography 19h ago
The Mediterranean isn’t a single shipping lane though, and the busiest part of the Mediterranean is the Suez but that’s part of Africa. Even if you take Gibraltar into account, Gibraltar is owned by Britain. English Channel trade is German, Dutch, Russian, and British goods going to the US. That’s the majority of the world’s economy going through one shipping lane.
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u/Passchenhell17 15h ago
And yet, the English Channel is still the busiest shipping lane in the world
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u/Lissandra_Freljord 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Prime Meridian should've been located in Florence, Italy, about 11.25° E of the current Prime Meridian. This would properly divide continental Asia (Chukotka, Russia) and continental North America (Alaska, USA) in Eastern and Western Hemispheres, without having a piece of continental Asia crossing into the Western Hemisphere as the current Greenwich Meridian sets it to be. The International Date Line would perfectly be passing in between the Diomede Islands, but the Aleutian Islands and Kiribati would still cross over from Western to Eastern Hemisphere (there is no perfect cut, but this is the most minimal intervention it would do compared to any meridian going over a larger larger continental landmass at the IDL). Besides, Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance that revived Western Civilization from the Dark Ages, so it does coincidentally carry a lot of symbolic importance, at least in the Western World, which was responsible for mapping out and connecting most of the continents and land masses of the currently known world.
For reference, here is what the Florence Meridian looks like: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Peters_projection%2C_date_line_in_Bering_strait.svg
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u/Reticulated_spline81 1d ago
Longitude is arbitrary, any meridian is as good as another, but the equator is hard to argue with as the middle.
In terms of human geography and history, where the equator intersects with the Rift valley I guess?
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u/Smitologyistaking 1d ago
What meridian perfectly splits the world into equal population on either side? Google is surprisingly unhelpful with this
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u/OldDutchJacket 1d ago
The East-West Population Equator is often described as the 77th meridian east, which passes through Asia. This meridian is notable because it roughly divides the global population into two equal halves, with approximately 50% of the world’s population living to the east and the other 50% living to the west.
This calculation takes into account the densely populated regions of South and East Asia, such as India, China, and Southeast Asia, compared to the sparser populations in other parts of the world. It is not a fixed line, as population dynamics shift over time.
According to ChatGPT
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u/Smitologyistaking 20h ago
til each meridian has its own wikipedia article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/77th_meridian_east
so pretty much straight through India
It is the most populous meridian on Earth, being home to between 113.8 million and 140.0 million people as of 2019.
Are you sure this isn't Chatgpt confusing median with mode?
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u/Resident-Skin-5183 1d ago
Well the earth spins on that axis.
The equator makes sense..uh..in that sense. Because its spins the way it does, the pole is our vertical central axis. But that has different value to us when talking about earthly centres. Even though we find our poles useful navigations. But magnetic north isn’t even true north.
Just the way shit worked out. I don’t know, I’m pretty stupid all things considered.
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u/Dissapointingdong 1d ago
It hasn’t been very arbitrary in historical terms. Most action is history has been in the northern hemisphere and east to west has shown more cultural differences than north and south.
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u/jimmyrayreid 22h ago
Except the equator very rarely splits the earth into two since the earth spins on an axis. My vote would be for the ITCZ
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u/Impossible_Smoke1783 1d ago
Istanbul
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u/GeddyVedder 1d ago
Not Constantinople.
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u/nattywb 1d ago
Well... Constantinople has a case for center of the world, buuut Istanbul is just another city.
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u/winkingfirefly 1d ago
Been a long time gone, Constantinople.
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u/twobit211 1d ago
why did constantinople get the works?
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u/DrL0lipop 1d ago
Was gonna say this or Jerusalem
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u/NonElectricalNemesis 1d ago
Yes, Palestine indeed feels a mix of cultures and humble beginnings. Historical town and everything.
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u/tambaybutfashion 1d ago
Honestly, somewhere in the Persian Gulf. Something about it feeling close to the centre of the whole Afro-Eurasian landmass.
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u/According-Air6435 1d ago
Yeah, smackdab in the middle between the Indian peninsula and the Arabian peninsula has always felt like the most appropriate place to call the center to me too
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u/StarlightSailor1 1d ago
This is actually an advantage airlines from the Gulf Countries enjoy. They serve as a good hub for flights traveling between Europe and Asia since they are close to the middle of the Eurasian landmass
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u/tambaybutfashion 1d ago
Yes, and Africa. All of which is a boon for their soft power as well. So many developing places used to want to be Singapore. Now they want to be Dubai.
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u/OutsidePerson5 1d ago
Muslims draw the Prime Meridian through Mecca, natch.
I argue that it moves since I'm clearly the center of everything and therefore when I move so does it.
More realistically, if we were going to reset things, I think either Mt Everest, the deepest part of the Mindanao Deep, or the point furthest from any land, would all be good contenders. You could also make a case for the Chicxulub crater since without it humans likely wouldn't have evolved.
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u/ewigesleiden 1d ago
The only other places I can think of as more appropriate would be either Nuremberg (as it lying on 11 degrees east would make the section of the Bering Strait between the two Diomedes lie at exactly 180 degrees), or somewhere between it and London as, apart from being the place where the Nazis were tried after WW2, it’s not nearly as significant as cities like Hamburg, Milan, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris or even London itself.
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u/venturajpo 1d ago
Bering strait, or its anti-meridian: Florence.
It also provides better west-east division in Europe
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u/MdMV_or_Emdy_idk 1d ago
Geography wise, it’s either London to split the pacific or some place in Asia that splits the world in a way that Africa is the westernmost point and the Americas are east, splitting the Atlantic.
Historically, each region/culture should have their own tbh… (at least Roman) Europe’s could be Rome for example
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u/Deep_Contribution552 1d ago
Mount Kenya seems a decent pick, it lies on the Equator, and is the highest such mountain in Africa, in the middle of a region which appears to have been one of the earliest human-inhabited parts of the world.
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 1d ago
Due to Mercator projections, my answer to this question is Ascension Island. Which is a UK dependency.
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u/Garreousbear 1d ago
To be fair, the Pacific Ocean is so big that London is pretty central to the land masses people live on.
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u/notPabst404 1d ago
Any "center" would need to be near the equator, so Singapore would make more sense than London.
London might make sense as a "center" in regards to population density though?
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u/pax_fiat 1d ago
According to Salvador Dali, the center of the universe is the train station of Perpignan, in the south of France https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jul-19-fg-dali19-story.html
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u/VastStrain 1d ago
It wouldn't be great if the International Date Line went through a big land mass so there are only so many places you could realistically put the Prime Meridian.
The IDL currently weaves it way down between Russia, Alaska and around some Pacific Islands. Hence Western Europe works well. Otherwise you could make it Sydney and that puts the line down the middle of the Atlantic - though you'd halve to draw it round to the east of Greenland. Wellington might work as well with the IDL needing to be close to the coast of Western Europe.
I'm not sure there are many other practical options. If you tried to put the Prime Meridian in the US for instance, some village in India would find itself in two days at once.
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u/Michaelbirks 1d ago
Well, the world revolves around me, and I live near Wellington, so that sounds like a good plan.
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u/Smart-Difficulty-454 1d ago
It's there by technological default. There needed to be a set reference point of longitude in order to accurately determine the positions of the stars relative to each other. This was a necessity for maritime navigation which the brts were obsessed with. It also required a very accurate time piece. The crown offered a 40,000 pound reward to whoever could build one. So someone did.
The Brits were first, they get to choose
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u/Derisiak 1d ago
I don’t know why, but where the Prime Meridian and the Equator line meet. Even if there’s nothing there, just water.
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u/glucklandau 1d ago
Take the mean longitude of the Pacific Ocean, the longitude 180° opposite should be the central longitude. Which is a little East of UK.
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u/ChoneFigginsStan 1d ago
It’s most definitely wrong, but I’ve always subconsciously imagined it being the eastern Sahara, like right where Chad, Libya, and Sudan meet.
If I were to move the prime meridian, I think I’d move it into the Atlantic, so all of Europe and Africa are east of it, while keeping the Americas west of it.
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u/Late_Bridge1668 1d ago edited 1d ago
To everyone who has a problem with the prime meridian: try to split the earth in any other way and watch what happens.
Mfs will really jump on any “anti euro-centrism” bandwagon because it’s in style without using a single brain cell to actually think about what they’re talking about.
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u/Save-La-Tierra 1d ago
Jerusalem Having been raised in an abrahamic religion, the important history there is unmatched. It also sits between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
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u/guynamedjames 1d ago
The 13th Meridian East gets my vote. Runs a bit west of Berlin, basically hits Salzburg, then slides through Italy a bit east of San Marino and Rome. It then continues until Africa hitting Tripoli and tracking slightly inland of the west Coast of the southern half of Africa.
Best of all, it forms a great circle with the 167th Meridian West and that particular line almost perfectly separates the Pacific into two clean halves between Alaska and Russia.
The 11th or 12th meridian have slightly better great circle counterparts but they miss the big population centers and I think you'll have better luck including them
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u/Different_Ad7655 1d ago
Boston claims it's the hub of the universe lol. After all that is the official nickname, The hub
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u/FineSupermarket3027 1d ago
Jerusalem. Its in the middle east, it has significance to many people across the world.
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u/nellisairforcebase 1d ago
If you think about it, you're at the centre of most maps you view nowadays. At least the maps you use to navigate.
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u/Zestyclose_Pirate890 1d ago
The center of the world is in each of our heads, because that's how we experience the world.
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u/Onemilliondown 1d ago
Greenwich became 12 midday because the English perfected navigation using chronometers. So they decided to use their point of reference. Everyone else followed because it worked.
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u/International_Bet_91 1d ago
The Mediterranean
The culture of Europe, The Middle East, and North and South America were founded in 2 cities: Athens and Jerusalem.
The Mediterranean is in the Middle.
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u/itsalonghotsummer 23h ago
London. Possibly influenced by the fact I'm currently sitting in the middle of it.
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u/Some-Air1274 20h ago
It kind of is the centre of the earth though. If you look at London it’s 8 hours from Chicago and 8 hours from the Middle East.
So sort of mid way between the centres of the two continents.
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u/darcys_beard 18h ago
But to be clear, this was for scientific simplicity. They didn't make the Centre of London the Prime Meridian; it was at the Greenwich Observatory, a few miles South East of London. I'd wager over 80% of Londoners live in the Western Hemisphere.
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u/MelodicFacade 1d ago
The Fucking United States of God Damn America of course, right over George Washingtons grave, may he rest in peace, what with y'all disgracing what he built
I don't even know where these nobody-non-nuclear-power countries are on the map!
/s obviously, I'm fine with Istanbul being the center, being the cross roads of east and west for so many years. Any European country just stinks of euro centrism to me, but I would prefer Switzerland if I had to pick one
I do feel bad for the new world though, there's really no way to not make them tucked on the edge of the map
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u/HopelessUtopia015 1d ago
It would probably be Istanbul if Turkey wasn't a complete failure on capitalising on its potential.
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u/mtntodesert 1d ago
Felicity, California is The Official Center of the World
Divide, Colorado is The Center of the Known Universe
Everywhere else is just fighting for scraps
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u/Hayasdan2020 1d ago
My grandfather believed that Chtaura was the center of the earth: the town near our village, from where buses traveled to different directions.
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u/imagineanudeflashmob 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/t3PjJPYppj
This location is the farthest from any ocean, so maybe that counts for something
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u/TheAimIs 1d ago
Ancient Greeks believed that the centre of Earth was Delphi (where the famous Oracle existed). They also had a myth. Zeus fred two eagles, they flew at different directions and they met again at Delphi.
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u/Super-History-388 1d ago
Why would they place the prime meridian anywhere else if they came up with the idea?
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u/Iron_Wolf123 1d ago
On a flat plain there is no centre. Of the Western World, I would say either Switzerland or Krakow. Of the Anglosphere, maybe New York. Of Afro-Eurasia, maybe Jerusalem
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u/Feeling-Signal1399 1d ago
We should actually grow the earth by roughly 20 degrees then put the prime meridian at the current 20 degrees point (through Iceland), the point of the mid Atlantic ridge, then with are new larger Earth it will go through the middle of the Diamedes.
This would put all of Eurasia and Africa on one hemisphere, and the Americas on the other one. I will accept nothing less!
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u/gothicshark 1d ago
Depends on what you measure. Human population between China and India, history maybe the Middle East, land mass... a lot harder due to points of reference. Magnetic poles north and south pole. Literal Earth's core. Take your pick...
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u/Mariner1990 21h ago
The equator and the prime meridian meet in the Gulf of Guinea ( the closest country being Ghana). The equator and the anti meridian meet in the Pacific near the Kiribati islands. I’d go with one ( or either) of these.
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u/thumper43x 21h ago
ME! I’m the center of the earth, and universe for that matter… all of you people are extras.
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u/Wranglin_Pangolin 1d ago
The Earth's core.