Life at Latitude Zero: The Middle of the World

Explore the monument that marks the Equatorial Line at zero latitude, where you can straddle both hemispheres at once and visit enlightening museums.

 

Hundreds of years after the indigenous peoples of Ecuador had established Catequilla as the centre of the world, a French expedition arrived to ascertain a geographically-measured centre. In the foothills of the Equinoctial Andes, the famous middle of the world monument marks the equatorial line: the centre of our planet earth: 0˚-0'-0" Latitude.

As the day breaks over the town of San Antonio, and the clouds and morning mist are lit and lifted by hazy dawn sunlight, the silhouette of a trapezoidal monolith topped with a sphere breaks through the backdrop of a mountainous horizon.

The 18th century, the beginning of the modern age, the Age of Enlightenment, the century of the geographic study of the Earth... At this time, a group of outstanding French scientists dedicated themselves to the study and measurement of our planet. In 1736 their mission to determine the meridian arc of the Southern hemisphere brought them to Quito, Ecuador. The team of specialists spent almost eight years placing their markers of small pyramids across the Andean countryside. They suffered all sorts of privations, while their markers were destroyed by superstitious Indians or expropriated for building materials. In 1936, the centre of the world ascertained by the measurements made by the French Geodesic expedition was finally marked by a monument.

At 0-0'-0" latitude, on the equatorial line, the grandiose quadrangular pyramid of the Equinoctial Monument. Placed with its four monoliths in 1979, the central monolith is decorated with a globe encircled by a silver band representing the equator. The globe is orientated corresponding to the true position of the earth.