A little while ago, I wondered what percentage of land surface has ocean or sea at its antipode. I’d fall smack into the Bermuda Triangle if I dug straight down.

With a big tip o’ the Hat to Clive Feather, I bring you this map showing what’s antipodeal to what. Clive adds:

Each pixel represents a half-degree block. The colours are based on the average height of the block being above or below sea level. Out of the 259200 (720×360) blocks:

15074 ( 5.8%) are land with antipodean land (black)
72947 (28.1%) are land with antipodean water (green)
72947 (28.1%) are water with antipodean land (pink)
98232 (37.9%) are water with antipodean water (blue)

So my hunch that land-land pairs are relatively sparse is borne out. They are largely confined to parts of South America, a small tongue in Asia, and Canada/Greenland, and only constitute 5.8% of the surface area of the planet.

Categories: fun & hobbies