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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w5wbr wrote

Someone made a quip about a city being on the "other side of the world" and I was curious what these direct overlaps looked like. Turns out they are called "antipodes". Here is the Wikipedia page that goes into some detail as well. And here is a cool tool you can use to see what is directly on the other side of the world from where you are!

I found it amazing that only 15% of land has an antipode that is also land. And if you account for only 30% of the Earth's surface being land, this works out to only 4% of the Earth's surface having two points antipodal that are both on land.

It's just a product of how the land and water are laid out, but it's really cool!

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12INCHVOICES t1_j4w9dgj wrote

Great post and great links to follow up. Very cool, OP...thank you!

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4wa6at wrote

Thanks! This was one of the more humorous maps out there.

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Pronoes84 t1_j4wem9l wrote

That's pretty cool. My butt sniffing friend is currently drowning 30 or 40 miles south of new Zealand

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NightWriter500 t1_j4wg4li wrote

Awesome tool, and fun to play with. So there are only three states with an antipode that is on land. Do you know the three?

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TheEggoEffect t1_j4y5sxl wrote

Hawaii, Alaska, Montana?

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NightWriter500 t1_j4y7bti wrote

That’s right! A tiny spot in Montana overlays port-aux-francais in the Kerguelen islands.

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glen27 t1_j4z2mjo wrote

Also, it looks like the only territory with a land antipode is American Samoa.

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AnthillOmbudsman t1_j4xuwy9 wrote

"Are you trying to tell me," said Arthur, "that you made the Earth with hardly any land antipodes?"

"Oh yes," said Slartibartfast. "Did you ever go to a place…I think it was called Portugal?"

"No," said Arthur, "no, I didn’t."

"Pity." said Slartibartfast. "That antipode is in New Zealand. Which has fjords. I was going to have all the antipodes set up that way."

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EH6TunerDaniel t1_j4ytjx3 wrote

I really need to reread those books.

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mruserdude t1_j548o87 wrote

Where is this reference from?

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EH6TunerDaniel t1_j550wcr wrote

Slartibartfast is a planet designer from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.

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mruserdude t1_j56i4qr wrote

Errmahgeerd!

Been too long since I’ve seen the movie and tv-series..

Been waiting to show the old tv-series to my S.O. This was probably what I needed to kick my ass into gear..

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Fskn t1_j51cs5l wrote

The antipode of new Zealand is in Spain not protugal unfortunately

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Blutarg t1_j4wrlqb wrote

Huh, mine is a lot closer to Madagascar than I would have thought.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4wtuyg wrote

Interesting. I'm in a North American city and someone said, most likely in a hyperbolic way, that London UK is on the "other side of the world". And I thought, well, technically, any point in the northern hemisphere will have it's opposing location in the southern hemisphere. Then I was curious on the exact point, and led me here!

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bloomy60 t1_j4x0k5y wrote

As someone that lives in New Zealand I laugh slightly sadly when I hear people in America say the UK or europe is on the other side of the world. It's one medium length flight away.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4xa0o1 wrote

I mean, colloquially, those places are on the other "side" of the world. If we think of what the other "side" means when talking about a sphere that rotates about an axis, the other "side" makes people think of the other "vertical" hemisphere when sliced along the rotational axis.

From a North American standpoint, take a city like Denver at 105 deg W. If you centre a vertical hemisphere over that longitude, then that hemisphere's borders would be at 90 deg either way. So from 15 deg W to "195 deg W" (15 deg E).

This ends up being a point off the west coast of the UK in line with the western coast of Africa all the way around to east of Japan.

While this is a technical definition I just made up, it sort of aligns with what people mean when they say "other side of the world".

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Soldier5ide t1_j4y9mn1 wrote

Having moved from the UK to S.E. US, very weird to see on these maps that it’s the (rough) equivalent of going from SW Australia to New Zealand.

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bloomy60 t1_j4yquky wrote

Yeap, Perth is 7 hours away. Apart from the islands which are a measly 4hrs away the next place is like Bali which is something like 10 hours.

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Godloseslaw t1_j4w88mv wrote

But you can make an "earth sandwich" there if you've got a friend and a piece of bread each.

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AudibleNod t1_j4waq30 wrote

We did it Reddit!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51171834

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DynamiteWitLaserBeam t1_j4ws6hn wrote

TIL that I, and everyone/thing I care about, are just filling for someone else's sandwich.

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NickyRD t1_j4x9w73 wrote

And thus summoned Colossus, the world eater.

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jajais4u t1_j4yjqrn wrote

Galactus, good sir. Now it makes sense why he sends the heralds.

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Art_Vandelay_Jr_ t1_j4w6x2b wrote

I love reading interesting facts like this

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w818q wrote

Same! I guess if you think about it logically, if you pick any spot on the globe, there's a 30% chance it's land. Thus, there's probably a 30% chance that the spot on the opposite side is land (just thinking in terms of a homogenous surface). Multiply those together and you get a 9% chance of land-on-land action.

So I guess 3-4% as estimated isn't crazy, but it's only half as likely as we would expect it to be.

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Meurs0 t1_j4wlkyh wrote

That half as likely probably comes from most of the land area being in the Northern hemisphere

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LegoRobinHood t1_j4wpw5p wrote

Ah, thank you! So the land and thus the probabilities are not distributed evenly. That makes sense.

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shannister t1_j4we8gu wrote

My statistics are rusty - why is it there isn't a 96% chance to arrive in a sea?

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4wgmtb wrote

It's 4% is land-to-land, meaning 96% isn't land-to-land. But that 96% could still be land-to-water, or water-to-land, or water-to-water.

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Tiny_Fractures t1_j4xfavu wrote

I figure if earth is 70% water, then 20% of that 70% must be opposite land, taking the 30% down to 10%.

For the remaining 10%, 50% chance the opposite is land. 50% water. Thats about 5%.

(I know this math is wrong lol).

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EasternEast21 t1_j4wd0iy wrote

So "digging a hole to China" is just a myth then!

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dethblud t1_j4wk4kq wrote

Not if you live in certain parts of Argentina or Chile!

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HHS2019 t1_j4wh0oi wrote

So you're saying that I *could* dig all the way to China...but I would need to start in Argentina.

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disneyvacafacts t1_j4w8fg1 wrote

Makes sense, when most of the land is on one half of the earth it makes it hard for anything but ocean to be on the other half. The Pacific ocean take of 30% of the worlds surface.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w8pmq wrote

I believe the Pacific is as high as 42% or something like that. It's massive! Go look on a globe and stare right at the middle; the whole hemisphere is pretty much ocean!

Makes it more bonkers to think about how old sailors could navigate to the tiny Hawaiian islands right in the middle of nowhere.

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disneyvacafacts t1_j4wgwnh wrote

Earth's surface area is 196.6 million square miles and the Pacific is 60 million square miles, that's how I was calculating the 30.5%

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isodore68 t1_j4xlhz2 wrote

Make a hole with a gun perpendicular

To the name of this town in a desktop globe

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blakerabbit t1_j4y19fl wrote

I guess “Ana Ng” is accurate if you’re in Peru…

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blakerabbit t1_j4y1adh wrote

I guess “Ana Ng” is accurate if you’re in Peru…

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jeffinRTP t1_j4w5p81 wrote

So 96% have water.

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Pyro-Byrns t1_j4w696r wrote

Nope, cuz you're forgetting the points that have both land and water.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w6o4i wrote

I think you're both right. "96% of the surface of the earth has an antipodal point that is not land-to-land". Or has at least one point being water.

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jeffinRTP t1_j4xau91 wrote

I'll admit I'm lazy, it would be very hard to figure out how many points have land and water.

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Unleashtheducks t1_j4w82bl wrote

I would have guessed 15% (1/3 x 1/3) but land isn’t distributed equally so if it’s mainly all together in one area, it makes sense it would be less likely to be on the opposite side.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w8iah wrote

It would actually be interesting to see how this number has changed over time (and how it will change). With Pangea, it would've been something like 0% since the land was all on one side of the world. Maybe this number will grow in the future?? (Like millions of years haha)

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krt941 t1_j4wmui7 wrote

It should rise. As the Atlantic expands the blue will move right and yellow will move left, so eventually North America will be opposite Africa as we get close to forming a new Pangea when the Pacific disappears.

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wegqg t1_j4w83oe wrote

This is actually genuinely very interesting.

Good Op.

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NeoPossum t1_j4wik08 wrote

This is a totally pointless fact. I'm gonna tell everyone.

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TikiNectar t1_j4x3t5t wrote

Viva Antipodas is a great movie about this

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[deleted] t1_j4w8wxj wrote

Depends on the elevation. The oceans are actually pretty shallow, geologically. You just can't be a wimp. Dig down before you demand an antipode.

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crackeddagger t1_j4w9f9j wrote

You won't fool me, Portugal! I'll still be the first to chart the path to the Indies!

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TatonkaJack t1_j4w9w2z wrote

Now little kids gotta say they are going to dig a hole all the way to the Indian Ocean

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BashfullyBi t1_j4wd785 wrote

My whole country is underwater

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alexxerth t1_j4wdhh5 wrote

I kind of wonder how this has changed over time. We've had a supercontinent cycle for hundreds of millions of years, I imagine that number drops pretty close to 0 when we've got like, Pangea.

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Blutarg t1_j4wqxa4 wrote

Dry land is not a myth!

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thatmikeguy t1_j4wt5u7 wrote

And let's hope it stays that way.

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hazily t1_j4wumrn wrote

And it seems like there’s only a few countries whose entire landmass is matched by an antipodal landmass: a quick glance it’s probably Malaysia. Singapore, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

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Low_Copy4023 t1_j4x9l1j wrote

I felt at some point, for personal reasons, that I'd like to live on the exact opposite side of the planet from where I am. It's somewhere out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Closest I could get would be Perth, Australia.

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TLDReddit73 t1_j4xd86j wrote

You telling me, if I dig through the earth, I'm going to drown?

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KeefTheWizard t1_j4xk0dq wrote

And most of that area is uninhabited

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Stswivvinsdayalready t1_j4xpdml wrote

Yes, this disappointed me during the Earth sandwich thing. Opposite me is way out in the Indian Ocean close to nothing. I can only ever make an open-faced Earth sandwich.

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AnthillOmbudsman t1_j4xtjqd wrote

So don't dig a hole to China in your back yard, you might have the entire Indian Ocean come flooding out of the hole.

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scooterjb t1_j4xuma0 wrote

So Chile and Argentina are really the only ones "digging to China" if they aim straight down.

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ToughLuver t1_j4xzaf2 wrote

One point is my backyard and China.

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mrbluezceen t1_j4xzcgh wrote

There's actually a really good movie/documentary about this called "¡Vivan las antípodas! - very arty! If you google it, it looks like it is streaming on several free services. Enjoy!

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dec7td t1_j4ydkyn wrote

Via playing Worldle I found two islands almost exactly on the other side of the world from one another. I figured it had to be super low odds.

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Due_Bluejay_51 t1_j4ykgjg wrote

People underestimate the sheer size of Pacific Ocean.

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dysfunctionalpress t1_j4ywbe7 wrote

it's a good thing i wasn't successful in my childhood project to dig thru to china...i would have just ended up flooding the front yard. dad would have been pissed off.

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Ennion t1_j4z08p0 wrote

So when I dug that hole as a Midwestern kid, I really couldn't dig to China?

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aightyeathatsme t1_j4z1z6m wrote

Looks like Argentina and Chile have some of the highest percentage of landmass covered by antipodes

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808_Lion t1_j4z3fva wrote

Huh according to maps my antipodal point is in Botswana, Africa. Neat.

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MacabrePuppy t1_j4z45ih wrote

I'm amused how central New Zealand is to that article while still not being pictured on the map.

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GeoffDeGeoff t1_j4zfphy wrote

It’s in the top left corner upside down isn’t it?

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MacabrePuppy t1_j4zhlnj wrote

Oh you're right, that's not where I was looking, thank you!

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No-Recording2937 t1_j4z9qc2 wrote

About 30% of the earth’s surface is land so if the land was distributed uniformly across the earth, about 9% (30% x 30%) of the surface would be land at both points on the antipode. However, most of the land is on the northern hemisphere, so 4% feels reasonable.

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DavidVee t1_j5141m0 wrote

Fun fact but there are an infinite amount of points in that 4% so in a way there are an infinite amount of points that connect through land.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j51cqla wrote

Infiniti isn't a mathematical quantity or "number" that we can use like that. It's more of a concept than anything. You could say that there are an infinite amount of places in the US, and in the world, for that matter.

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DavidVee t1_j534fjm wrote

Yep. Just a circle has infinite points which is a point people often make.

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XSavage19X t1_j4w8me0 wrote

I'd like to hear some wild theories as to why this occurs.

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[deleted] t1_j4w9ccp wrote

I mean. It's mostly because of how much water there is, how smooth the surface of the planet generally is (one really big, really deep fissure would make sea water 'bunch up' more), and plate tectonics.

In the Pangaea days, and at some points in the future, there were far fewer dry antipodes. The present day doesn't have the highest possible proportion of them, either.

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A_1337_Canadian OP t1_j4w9zq8 wrote

Just a product of where the land is situated. Nothing really "created" this statistic in the sense that the land ended up in certain spots and this statistic represents the state we are in today.

But, I also think it's a combination of aliens and magnets.

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XSavage19X t1_j4wcydm wrote

At first, your answer was too sciencey, but then you got it back on track.

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TooMad t1_j4wffm3 wrote

> But, I also think it's a combination of aliens and magnets.

But definitely not birds.

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Landlubber77 t1_j4w9jw1 wrote

And somehow, 100% of it is Kelly Clarkson.

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herbw t1_j4xqjdq wrote

BS. Am not going to check either.

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chadburycreameggs t1_j4yy8hc wrote

What an odd fact for anyone to care about, even a little bit.

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