Prime Meridian
The Prime Meridian is the meridian (line of longitude) that goes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London it is also known as the International Meridian or Greenwich Meridian. Other longitudes are given as east or west of the Prime Meridian.
Lines like this are not actually lines on the ground, but are ways of saying where a place is on the globe. The ones that run horizontal (east to west) are called latitude. They tell us how far a location is from the equator. The other lines are vertical and are known as longitudes.
Such is the Meridian's fame that each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from all around the world make their way to the Observatory to stand astride the Line. But its position is marked in hundreds of other places too. On its path from pole to pole, the Meridian passes through England, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Antarctica.
Prime Meridian Media
Gerardus Mercator in his Atlas Cosmographicae (1595) used a prime meridian somewhere close to 25°W, passing just to the west of Santa Maria Island in the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. His 180th meridian runs along the Strait of Anián (Bering Strait)
William Grigg's facsimile of the 1529 Spanish Padron Real, from the copy made by Diogo Ribeiro and held by the Vatican Library.
1571 Africa map by Abraham Ortelius, with Cape Verde as its prime meridian.
1682 map of East Asia by Giacomo Cantelli, with Cape Verde as its prime meridian; Japan is thus located around 180° E.
The line of the Greenwich meridian at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The prime meridian on a globe
The prime meridian sign in Parnay, Maine-et-Loire, France.
Prime meridian sign near Somanya, Ghana.
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