Re:Equal Earth – Political Wall Map (2018)
by fph on Sunday August 24, 2025 @04:01AM
(#45002297)
The Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
It does split off part of Russia, I believe. The Florence meridian works slightly better for avoiding splitting any landmasses.
As I understand it, it's not the best location, it's just good enough and was very popular for historical reasons.
Re:Equal Earth – Political Wall Map (2018)
by notahacker on Sunday August 24, 2025 @06:59AM
(#45003197)
It's mostly a convenient location for a group based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich to define...
Re:Equal Earth – Political Wall Map (2018)
by mapmeld on Sunday August 24, 2025 @08:08AM
(#45003613)
I don't think enough people talk about how lucky we are that the International Date Line can roughly follow a line of longitude 180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian. If you were on a planet with more land, or we could only draw it through the Atlantic or Australia, timezones would be a lot weirder.