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Why does the international date line deviate from 180th meridian for a portion of its length?
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
In order to avoid splitting any single city, state, country, island, or island group
into two different calendar dates.
Can you just imagine the Horror of daily life in a place where your job, or your
doctor, or your dentist, or your church, or your bank, was on a different date and
a different day of the week from your home !
How about getting on a bus on Thursday to go downtown shopping, riding the bus
for 20 minutes, and then when you get off the bus downtown, it's Wednesday !
And how about calling up a doctor you've never seen before, and getting an
appointment for a physical at 9 o'clock on the 14th. There's this important meeting
downtown at a client's office that you're going to on the morning of the 13th.
No problem, right ? Maybe not. But you can't be sure until you check the city map
carefully. If the client's office and the doctor are not on the same side of the Dateline,
then the appointment and the meeting could be on the same day. And if they're both
on the same side of the line, then they're on different days, but are they on the same
side that you live on, and do those dates correspond to the same numbers on the
calendar in your kitchen ?
See what I mean ?
One of the political divisions that crosses the 180th meridian, and would have had
different dates within its border if the Dateline didn't zig-zag, is the state of Alaska.
And therefor the USA.
Wiki User
∙ 11y ago
Wiki User
∙ 7y agoTo keep countries within the same day.
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The length of a "day" on the moon is 29 Earth days.
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Every meridian is about 12,426 miles long.
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The International Date Line is close to the meridian of 180 degrees longitudefor much of its length, but doesn't follow it exactly, in order to avoid splittingany single island, state, or country into two different calendar dates.Helpful Spelling Glossary:-- Parallel . . . a line of constant latitude-- Meridian . . a line of constant longitude
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A nautical mile is approximately one minute of arc of latitude along a meridian. To simplify, it is 1.15078 miles, or 1.85200 km as defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in 1929. This is the generally accepted international length.
Are longitudes same length?
Every meridian of constant longitude joins the Earth's north and south poles, so the length of each meridian is 1/2 of the Earth's polar circumference.
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-- The longitude of the Prime Meridian is zero. -- Every point on the Prime Meridian has a different latitude. -- For every possible latitude, there is a point on the Prime Meridian.
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The prime meridian encircles the entire earth, which means it is the same length as the earth's circumference, which is 24,901.55 miles.
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Phoenix International Raceway is 1 mile in length.
Does every meridian have the same length and the same beginning and end points?
yes
What is the name of the meridian located opposite the prime meridian and passing through the pacific ocean?
The antimeridian, at longitude 180° (West/East).The International Dateline is not the same thing, it skirts several areas to make time zones work better, and so doesn't have a consistent longitude.
How many miles long is the Prime Meridian?
The prime meridian encircles the entire earth, which means it is the same length as the earth's circumference, which is 24,901.55 miles.
Why does the international date line touch the north and south poles?
Touch what ? ! ? The International Dateline touches more than 400 miles of Antarctica, and the Pacific Ocean over most of its length. It also touches the meridian of 180° longitude over most of its length, and it touches the Earth's surface at every inch of its full and complete length of well over 12,000 miles.
Where are the Prime Meridian and the International Dateline?
The Prime Meridian is the imaginary line defined as zero longitude. It joins the north and south poles and passes through England, Spain, France, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana, and Antarctica. On its way through England, it crosses a certain mark on the floor of a certain room at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, outside London. The meridian of 180° longitude is exactly opposite the Prime Meridian and together, they form a complete circle. That meridian also joins the north and south pole, and passes through the Pacific Ocean for most of its length. The International Dateline roughly follows the meridian of 180° longitude, but departs from it with zigs and zags in several places, in order to avoid splitting any single state, country, or island group into two different calendar dates.
