There is also a route that can be drawn from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Canadian east coast on the Atlantic … head a bit south east and without touching land and only going over the ocean, you can end up on the west coast of British Columbia, in Canada on the Pacific coast.
I used to reference a website that showed that … but now I can’t seem to find it. :(
Another fun one is to ask someone if they were to take off in an airplane from Miami and fly due south, which South American countries would they fly over?
The answer is none of them. You end up missing the entire continent because you are too far west.
You hit Panama first, but small portions of Ecuador and Peru are west of Miami (80.2 degrees west). The broader point that South America is much farther east than many Americans think is definitely true, though.
To expand on this idea: the most eastern part of the South American continent (Brazil) and the most western part of Iceland are only about 10° longitude apart. Meanwhile, Iceland shares lines of longitude with a number of countries in western Africa.
I tried replicating this with Google Earth, but once you get past the halfway mark it tries to flip around and draw a line in the other direction. Guestimating it by drawing two lines seems to work ok, but I can’t find a way to avoid Australia, while shifting the start and end points between northern and southern NS and BC, and keeping the midpoint either just missing Africa or just missing Antarctica.
There used to be a website or post where I originally saw this … I can’t find it any more. And there are no more easily accessible websites that can diagram maps with ‘great circles’ on a globe. This was ten years ago and it used to be easy to find this stuff … interesting to see that most of those sites are either now gone or don’t work any more.
But from what I remember, the line between Halifax and the west of Canada skirted the edge of Africa and the edge of Australia to make it across the globe without touching any land mass or island.
There is also a route that can be drawn from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Canadian east coast on the Atlantic … head a bit south east and without touching land and only going over the ocean, you can end up on the west coast of British Columbia, in Canada on the Pacific coast.
I used to reference a website that showed that … but now I can’t seem to find it. :(
Another fun one is to ask someone if they were to take off in an airplane from Miami and fly due south, which South American countries would they fly over?
The answer is none of them. You end up missing the entire continent because you are too far west.
You hit Panama first, but small portions of Ecuador and Peru are west of Miami (80.2 degrees west). The broader point that South America is much farther east than many Americans think is definitely true, though.
Does work for Tampa though
To expand on this idea: the most eastern part of the South American continent (Brazil) and the most western part of Iceland are only about 10° longitude apart. Meanwhile, Iceland shares lines of longitude with a number of countries in western Africa.
I looked at that on Google Earth, now I’m uncomfortable in two directions…
I tried replicating this with Google Earth, but once you get past the halfway mark it tries to flip around and draw a line in the other direction. Guestimating it by drawing two lines seems to work ok, but I can’t find a way to avoid Australia, while shifting the start and end points between northern and southern NS and BC, and keeping the midpoint either just missing Africa or just missing Antarctica.
There used to be a website or post where I originally saw this … I can’t find it any more. And there are no more easily accessible websites that can diagram maps with ‘great circles’ on a globe. This was ten years ago and it used to be easy to find this stuff … interesting to see that most of those sites are either now gone or don’t work any more.
But from what I remember, the line between Halifax and the west of Canada skirted the edge of Africa and the edge of Australia to make it across the globe without touching any land mass or island.