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The Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.
by fph 1y ago
The Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.
- MrJohz 1y agoIt does split off part of Russia, I believe. The Florence meridian works slightly better for avoiding splitting any landmasses. As I understand it, it's not the best location, it's just good enough and was very popular for historical reasons.
- notahacker 1y agoIt's mostly a convenient location for a group based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich to define...
- mapmeld 1y agoI don't think enough people talk about how lucky we are that the International Date Line can roughly follow a line of longitude 180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian. If you were on a planet with more land, or we could only draw it through the Atlantic or Australia, timezones would be a lot weirder.