Antipodes

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This map shows the antipode of each point on Earth's surface—the points where the blue and yellow overlap are land antipodes; most land has its antipodes in the ocean. This map uses the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. The yellow areas are the reflections through Earth's center of land masses of the opposite Western Hemisphere.

The same map, from the perspective of the Western Hemisphere. Here the blue areas are the reflections of the Eastern Hemisphere.

In geography, the antipode (/ˈæntɪˌpoʊd, ænˈtɪpədi/) of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points antipodal (/ænˈtɪpədəl/) 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.^{[note 1]} The North and South Poles are antipodes of each other.

In the Northern Hemisphere, "the Antipodes" may refer to Australia and New Zealand, and Antipodeans to their inhabitants.^[2] Geographically, the antipodes of the British Isles are in the Pacific Ocean, south of New Zealand. This gave rise to the name of the Antipodes Islands of New Zealand, which are close to the antipode of London. With the exception of a part of the Perth metropolitan area near Baldivis and Rockingham that is antipodal to Bermuda, the antipodes of Australia are in the North Atlantic Ocean, while parts of Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco are antipodal to New Zealand.

Approximately 15% of land territory is antipodal to other land, representing approximately 4.4% of Earth's surface.^[3] Another source estimates that about 3% of Earth's surface is antipodal land.^[4] The largest antipodal land masses are the Malay Archipelago, antipodal to the Amazon basin and adjoining Andean ranges; east China and Mongolia, and small sections of southeast Russia, antipodal to Argentina and Chile; and Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, antipodal to East Antarctica. There is a general paucity of antipodal land because the Southern Hemisphere has comparatively less land than the Northern Hemisphere and, of that, the antipodes of Australia are in the North Atlantic Ocean, while the antipodes of southern Africa are in the North Pacific Ocean.

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