Have you ever wondered who exactly is standing on the opposite side of the world to you?
The answer is probably no one.
When I was young there was a story that if you dug a hole deep enough for you to come out on the other side of the Earth and that you would probably appear in China. However, this week I found out the true reason of why this is almost impossible from most places on the world’s surface.
Because of the proportion of the world that is covered in water there are very few antipodes around the world. Antipodes exist when two land masses are on opposite sides of the world of each other.
This is extremely rare because much of the northern hemisphere is covered by land where is much of the Southern Hemisphere is covered by the oceans.
If you look at the map above you’ll see the reflected Continents shown in black and white, with only the green areas representing Antipodes where both areas are covered by land.
You can also use this tool to try and find out what is on the opposite side of the world from you right now:
I love how Hawaii in the middle of the Ocean has an Antipode in Botswana. Click here to try it yourself
This phenomenon was first brought to mainstream attention by the Ze Frank in his series about creating an “earth sandwich”. He set a challenge for his followers to be the first people on opposite sides of the world to both place a piece of bread on the ground simultaneously, thereby effectively creating the earth in between slices of bread, or an Earth Sandwich.
The videos below show the first successful people to complete this challenge; a couple from the UK who flew to a remote part of Spain and the man in New Zealand to put the piece of bread down in his back garden at the same time.
When I first found out about this it gave me a completely new perspective on how small the world really is.
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Have you found your antipode using the tool? If so, where is it? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to share and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.