Antipode Map: What Is on the Other Side of the World?

The Meaning of Antipode

The antipode of a place is the point on the exact opposite side of the Earth. Draw a straight line from your place through the centre of the Earth, and it comes out at your antipode. The word comes from Greek and means “with the feet opposite”: two people standing at antipodes have their feet pointing at each other through the planet.

What This Antipode Map Does

The tool shows two maps. The left map is your place (pin A) and the right map is its antipode (pin B). Choose a place in any way you like: your current location, a search, or a click on either map. The tool then names both places, so you can read at once whether the other side of the world is a town, a desert, a forest or the open sea.

Free, Private and Without Sign-Up

There is no account and no payment. Your location is only used to name the two points, and Maplity does not store it. A share link holds only the coordinates.

Find the Antipode of a City, Address or Coordinates

Type a city, an address, a landmark or coordinates such as 40.4168, -3.7038 in the box and press Find antipode. The Try buttons load six famous places. Madrid, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Beijing and Auckland all have land on the other side. New York does not.

Use Your Location or Click Either Map

Me uses the location of your phone or computer and answers “what is on the other side of the world from me”. You can also click anywhere on the left map, or drag pin A. Clicking the right map works too: it chooses the antipode, and the left map shows the place opposite to it.

Reading the Result

The orange box names the antipode: a town, district, region and country on land, or an ocean or sea. The six cards give the coordinates of both points, the distance through the Earth and along the surface, the sun time on both sides right now, and the season on both sides. Swap sides makes the antipode your new place.

Sharing the Result

Share on WhatsApp sends the two places, the antipode coordinates and a link. Copy result copies the same text, Copy share link copies a link that opens the same point, and Open antipode in Google Maps shows the other side there.

1. Latitude: Change North to South

The antipode is in the other half of the world, at the same distance from the equator. So the latitude keeps its number and changes its sign: 40° north becomes 40° south, and 33° south becomes 33° north.

2. Longitude: Move 180 Degrees

The antipode is half way around the world from east to west, which is 180°. If the longitude is east (a positive number), subtract 180. If it is west (a negative number), add 180. The answer is always between -180 and 180.

3. A Worked Example: Madrid

Madrid is at 40.4168, -3.7038. The latitude becomes -40.4168. The longitude is negative, so add 180: -3.7038 + 180 = 176.2962. The antipode is -40.4168, 176.2962, which is in the Tararua District of New Zealand, near the small town of Weber. You can check it with the Madrid button in the tool.

4. How Far Is the Antipode?

Straight through the centre of the Earth the antipode is about 12,742 km (7,918 miles) away, the diameter of the Earth. Along the surface it is about 20,015 km (12,437 miles), half of the way around the world, in any direction you choose. That is why the antipode is the farthest place you can travel to. The tool uses a mean Earth radius of 6,371 km.

For Most Places, the Answer Is the Sea

Water covers about 71% of the Earth, and most land is in the northern half, opposite the big southern oceans. So for most people the antipode is in the ocean. Only about 15% of the land on Earth has land on the other side. That is about 4.4% of the whole surface. Of the 100 famous places on this page, 38 have land at their antipode.

The Main Areas Where Land Is Opposite Land

The USA and Canada: the Indian Ocean

Almost all of the USA and Canada is opposite the southern Indian Ocean, south-west of Australia. Of the 50 US states, only Hawaii has land on the other side, in Botswana. Mexico, Cuba and Bermuda are also opposite the Indian Ocean.

Europe, Africa and South Asia: the Pacific Ocean

Most of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India and Pakistan is opposite the Pacific Ocean. Spain and Portugal are the exception in Europe, opposite New Zealand. Australia is opposite the North Atlantic Ocean, and Japan and Korea are opposite the South Atlantic Ocean, east of Uruguay and Argentina.

Not in China (Unless You Start in Argentina)

Children in the USA often hear that a hole dug straight down would come out in China. It would not: it would come out in the Indian Ocean. China is opposite Argentina and Chile, so the children who could really “dig to China” live in Buenos Aires province, Río Negro or Jujuy.

How Deep Have People Really Dug?

The deepest hole ever made is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, at about 12.2 km. The centre of the Earth is about 6,371 km down, so this hole reached less than 0.2% of the way to the centre. Deeper down, the rock is too hot and soft to drill, and the core is hotter than 5,000 °C.

How Long Would a Fall Through the Earth Take?

Physicists have worked this out for a tunnel with no air: you would fall to the other side in about 38 minutes, using the real density of the Earth. For an Earth with the same density all through, the answer is about 42 minutes. You would arrive at your antipode with no speed left, and then fall back again.

1. Geography lessons

The antipode shows how latitude and longitude work and why the Earth is round. Students can find the other side of their own school and check it on the maps.

2. The "dig a hole to China" question

Many children ask where they would come out if they dug straight down. The tool gives the real answer for any place, and for most people it is the sea.

3. The farthest trip you can make

Your antipode is the farthest point on Earth from your home. Travellers use it to plan a trip to "the other side of the world" or to find the farthest city they could visit.

4. Calls and meetings 12 hours apart

At the antipode the sun time is 12 hours different. If you have family or work on the other side of the world, morning for you is evening for them.

5. Opposite seasons

Summer on one side is winter on the other. People who move or travel between Europe and New Zealand, or China and Argentina, live with this every year.

6. Quizzes and trivia

Which city is opposite Madrid? Which US state has land on the other side? The 100 famous places below are good material for quiz nights and classroom games.

7. Radio and science

Radio amateurs know that a signal to the antipode can arrive from any direction, because every great circle path has the same length. Earthquake waves also meet again at the antipode of the quake.

8. Stories, games and art

Writers, game makers and artists use antipodes for stories about tunnels through the Earth, for "mirror world" maps and for posters of two places that face each other.

How to Read These Tables

Each row gives a famous city or landmark, its coordinates, and what is at its antipode: the town and region on land, or the ocean or sea. The names come from the same address search as the tool. Press View on map to open the place and its antipode in the tool, then zoom in on both sides.

What Is on the Other Side of Europe?

What Is on the Other Side of North America and the Caribbean?

What Is on the Other Side of Latin America?

What Is on the Other Side of East Asia?

What Is on the Other Side of Southeast Asia?

What Is on the Other Side of South Asia and the Middle East?

What Is on the Other Side of Africa?

What Is on the Other Side of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific?

What Is on the Other Side of the Poles?

The Antipodes Islands

South-east of New Zealand there is a small group of islands called the Antipodes Islands. British sailors named them in 1800 because they are close to the antipode of London (about 200 km away). Today they are a nature reserve with no people living on them.

Why Australia and New Zealand Are Called “the Antipodes”

In British English, “the Antipodes” means Australia and New Zealand, because they are on the other side of the world from Britain. The antipode of Britain is really in the ocean south-east of New Zealand, but the name stayed.

The North Pole and the South Pole

The two poles are the antipodes of each other. Any point on the equator has its antipode on the equator too, on the other side of the world: the antipode of the Galápagos Islands is in the Indian Ocean, south of the Bay of Bengal.

The Calculation

The antipode is computed in your browser with the rule above. It is exact, and it does not need a server. The distances use a mean Earth radius of 6,371 km. The sun time is the mean solar time from the longitude (4 minutes per degree), not the clock time zone.

Place Names: OpenStreetMap

The names of the two points come from OpenStreetMap data, read through LocationIQ, OpenCage and Geoapify, with Photon and Nominatim as free fallbacks, all through Maplity’s server. When a point has no address, the tool names the ocean or sea from a simple map of the oceans.

Maps

The street map is Maplity’s own vector basemap built from OpenStreetMap data, the satellite map is Esri World Imagery, and the maps use Leaflet 1.9. The page runs on Next.js and React.

More Free Map Tools

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