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The Equator on a Map

The one line on Earth that is not a convention: it is where the axis of rotation says it is.

How to use it

  1. Read the key facts, then scroll the map along the red line; the shaded countries are the ones it crosses.
  2. Click a white marker to read where, in that country, the line runs.
  3. Type a place, or use your location, and press Find nearest point to get the distance to the Equator and the spot due north or south of you.
  4. Share the page link: the place you searched is kept in the URL.

How it works

The Equator is latitude zero, so the map draws the 0° parallel as a dense polyline; on a Mercator map that is a straight horizontal line. The country outlines come from this site's own countries file (Natural Earth boundaries) filtered to the 13 countries on the list, which was checked country by country; two of them, the Maldives and Kiribati, are crossed in their waters only and are marked as such.

The nearest point is due north or south of the place you enter, and the distance is a great-circle distance on a sphere of mean radius, which is within 0.3 percent of the exact figure. The equinox instants come from the Meeus mean-season formula with its periodic terms, good to a few minutes. Place search uses Photon and reverse lookups use Nominatim, both OpenStreetMap services, and only after you act.

Questions

Which countries does the Equator pass through?
Thirteen: Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, DR Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, the Maldives, Indonesia, Kiribati, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil. The Maldives and Kiribati are crossed in their territorial waters only, so 11 countries have land on the line.
Does the Equator pass through the United States?
No. The southernmost point of the fifty states, Ka Lae in Hawaii, is at 18.9° N. The closest US territory is Jarvis Island, an uninhabited atoll in the central Pacific about 25 miles (41 km) south of the line.
Is the Equator the hottest place on Earth?
No. The sun is high all year at the Equator but the belt is also cloudy and wet, so it is warm and steady rather than extreme. The hottest recorded temperatures come from deserts around 25° to 35° north, such as Death Valley and the Sahara.
How long is the Equator?
About 24,901 miles (40,075 km). It is the longest circle of latitude because the Earth bulges at the middle: the equatorial radius is 13 miles (21 km) longer than the polar radius.

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