How to use it
- Look at the red line on the globe: the Equator. Drag the globe to follow it.
- Type a place or press My location to see how far you are from it, and in which direction.
- Read the countries it crosses and the facts.
5 practical uses
- Plan a trip to stand on the line in Ecuador, Kenya or Indonesia.
- Teach latitude, seasons and day length.
- Find how far a place is from the Equator for a climate comparison.
- Prepare a crossing-the-line ceremony at sea.
- Check which countries lie on the Equator.
The maths behind it
The Equator is the great circle at φ = 0, length 2πR = 40,075 km at the equatorial radius. The distance from a place to it along the meridian is R·|φ|: 111.2 km per degree of latitude. The countries crossed are found by testing every edge of every country outline for a change of sign of the latitude.
What it is
The Equator is the circle on the Earth's surface equidistant from the two poles, the line of 0° latitude, 40,075 km round. It divides the northern and southern hemispheres. On the Equator every day of the year has almost exactly twelve hours of daylight, the sun passes straight overhead at the two equinoxes, and the Earth's spin carries the ground east at 1,670 km/h, faster than anywhere else, which is why rockets are launched near it.
Where it runs
It crosses South America through Ecuador (named for it), Colombia and Brazil; the Atlantic; Africa through São Tomé and Príncipe's waters, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia; the Indian Ocean through the Maldives' waters; Indonesia on Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and Halmahera; and Kiribati's waters in the Pacific. Most of it, about 79 %, is over water.
Sailors and the doldrums
Near the Equator the trade winds of the two hemispheres meet in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a belt of calms and thunderstorms sailors called the doldrums. Crossing the line for the first time is still marked on ships with a ceremony for King Neptune.