Remember when you were a little kid and you tried to “dig a hole to China?” Welp, thanks to the wonders of computers and the internet, there’s a map that’ll take your coordinates and show you where you’d wind up if you really did dig that hole all the way through to the other side of the earth.
The site is called Antipodes Map.
From Wikipedia:
In geography, the antipode of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth’s surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points antipodal to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through Earth’s center. Antipodal points are as far away from each other as possible.
It’s a cute little site and all it does is show you what would be on the other side of the world from any geographic location on earth.
Now, there’s some good news and some bad news about doing this.
The bad news is that since about 70% of the earth is covered in water, chances are very good that whatever coordinates you put in, you’re going to wind up in an ocean, or at least a sea, on the other side.
The good news is that it’s still fun to play around with.
Let’s say you were in, oh I dunno, Colorado Springs, CO, and started digging straight through. You’d eventually wind up in the Indian Ocean, about 2/5 of the way between South Africa and Australia.
In fact, you could be almost anywhere in the United States and wind up in the Indian Ocean (it’s a big ocean). The only exception is Hawaii. If you dug a hole there, you’d wind up in either Botswana or Namibia.
If you were in Tokyo and went straight through? You’d be in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Uruguay.
What if you started in London, England? Well, you wouldn’t be very far from New Zealand, but you’d still in the water.
There are few places where you could start and still wind up being on land on the other side, and antipodesmap.com includes them on their site.
Oh, and if you really DID want to dig a hole to China? You’d have to be somewhere in or near Argentina or Chile.
Again, the site is antipodesmap.com. Have fun!
Feature Photo: Twitter/ Cliff Pickover (artist unknown)
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4 comments
I disagree. Why be so stupid to dig a hole through the center of the Earth? Deviate a little to the side. If starting from the US, you could get to China and save a few thousand miles of digging.
Good one Derek! 🙃
Many years ago, I was curious where I’d end up if I dug down from St Paul, Minnesota. Of course, I’d end up in the Indian Ocean – but in an odd coincidence, the closest land mass is a little French territory called St Paul Island.
If we dig a hole to the Arctic Circle, we can take all Earth-Wreckers diamonds and block them from coming back in!! One can dream…🤔