{"id":5809,"date":"2010-09-01T02:47:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T07:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=5809"},"modified":"2021-06-10T18:41:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T23:41:23","slug":"prime-meridian-capital-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/prime-meridian-capital-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Meridian Capital Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>School must be back in session. I can sense that must have happened because I&#8217;m capturing an exact phrase from multiple Internet Protocol addresses in my search engine query logs: &#8220;<em>The Primer Meridian runs through what two capital cities?<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could it be a Coincidence? I think not. I remember those bygone days of excessive homework and I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;ve been able to leave them far behind. Sure it was good for me in the long run but I always dreaded homework. I hated that it took me away from other activities such as drawing my own maps of fantasy worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/embed?mid=1LQhpxAQ_15ONhNzyGDYqC7AToC4\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me see if I can help a few of those students out just a bit. The easiest way to solve this question involves the drafting of a single line, the Prime Meridian. This takes only about thirty seconds using the Google Maps &#8220;My Map&#8221; function, as I&#8217;ve provided above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">London<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/doctorvee\/6888130193\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/7039\/6888130193_1381760a1d_b.jpg\" alt=\"Prime meridian at Greenwich. Photo by Duncan Stephen; (CC BY-NC 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Prime meridian at Greenwich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This first one is the easy one. The Prime Meridian was defined as running through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, as endorsed by the International Meridian Conference in 1884. London is the first capital city bisected by the Prime Meridian by definition and international convention. I mean the Greater London metropolitan area, <a href=\"\/blog\/?p=1691\">not the City of London specifically<\/a>. Anyway, let&#8217;s not get too hung up on semantics and consider London as the first instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Accra<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stignygaard\/219293549\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/97\/219293549_fdb62aaef7_b.jpg\" alt=\"Independence Square. Photo by Stig Nygaard; (CC BY 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Black Star Arch; Accra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m going to guess that the second city is Accra, Ghana. It&#8217;s not <em>exactly<\/em> on the line but its eastern boundary appears to be within 5 kilometres. The actual meridian seems to run through a neighboring town, Tema, but I think it&#8217;s accurate enough for a homework assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are some others capital cities that aren&#8217;t too far distant either. It&#8217;s more than I imagined. Am I missing any?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Lom\u00e9, Togo at +1\u00b012&#8242;<\/li><li>Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at -1\u00b032&#8242;<\/li><li>Niamey, Niger at +2\u00b06&#8242;<\/li><li>Paris, France at +2\u00b021&#8242;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Hope that helps, kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>School must be back in session. I can sense that must have happened because I&#8217;m capturing an exact phrase from multiple Internet Protocol addresses in my search engine query logs: &#8220;The Primer Meridian runs through what two capital cities?&#8220; Could it be a Coincidence? I think not. I remember those bygone days of excessive homework [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,78,32,2121],"tags":[2440,2441,1754,2442,1588,2444,2443,1267,6924],"class_list":["post-5809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities","category-international","category-longitude","category-united-kingdom","tag-accra","tag-ghana","tag-greenwich","tag-lome","tag-london","tag-niamey","tag-ouagadougou","tag-prime-meridian","tag-united-kingdom"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Prime Meridian Capital Cities - Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Question: The Primer Meridian runs through what two capital cities? Answer: London (by definition) and Accra. Lom\u00e9, Ouagadougou, Niamey and Paris are close.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/prime-meridian-capital-cities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Prime Meridian Capital Cities - Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: The Primer Meridian runs through what two capital cities? Answer: London (by definition) and Accra. 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