Antipode map
Search for a place and see its antipode, the point on the exact opposite side of the Earth, on two maps side by side. The tool tells you whether each one is on land (and in which country) or at sea.
Example The antipode of New York. Search for your town, use your location or tap either map.
Your place
New York
Loading the map…
Checking land or sea…
- Coordinates
- 40.66270° N, 73.93870° W40°39'45.7"N 73°56'19.3"W
Its antipode, on the other side of the Earth
On the other side of the world
Loading the map…
Checking land or sea…
- Coordinates
- 40.66270° S, 106.06130° E40°39'45.7"S 106°03'40.7"E
Result
Over the surface it’s
12,430 mialong the shortest route on the WGS84 ellipsoid, which is always the same: half a meridian, over both poles.
On the other side, everything is flipped
- Solar time is 12 hours apart: when it’s noon here, it’s midnight there.
- The seasons are reversed: when it’s summer here, it’s winter there.
- Straight through the Earth it’s 7,918 mi: the diameter.
Share these antipodes
How to use it
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Choose a place
Search for a town or city, paste coordinates, use your location or tap the first map.
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See the other side
The second map shows the antipode, with its coordinates and whether it’s land or sea. You can also tap it to search the other way round.
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Share it or dig
Copy the link to show someone, or open the tunnel to see how long it would be and how long the fall would take.
What it’s for
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If you dug a hole
The age-old question: where would you come out? Almost never in China, and from most of the US, in the Indian Ocean.
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Geography class
See that the Earth is a sphere and that most of its surface is ocean.
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Travel as far as possible
Your antipode is the farthest point from home: go any farther and you’re getting closer again.
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Time and seasons
At the antipode, solar time is 12 hours apart and the seasons are reversed.
How it’s calculated
You get a point’s antipode by flipping the sign of its latitude and adding or subtracting 180° to its longitude. To tell land from sea, Mapsfera checks whether the point falls inside any country on the Natural Earth 1:10m outlines (Antarctica included); within 1 km (0.6 mi) of the coast it counts as land, because the simplified outline doesn’t follow the shoreline in detail.
Antipode
φ′ = −φ λ′ = λ ± 180°
φ is latitude and λ longitude; add or subtract 180° so the result stays between −180° and 180°.
Distance
half a meridian ≈ 12,430 mi over the surface; 2R ≈ 7,918 mi through it
On the WGS84 ellipsoid the shortest route to the antipode always follows a meridian over both poles, from any latitude.
| New York | 40.66270° N, 73.93870° W |
|---|---|
| Its antipode | 40.66270° S, 106.06130° E |
| Land or sea? | sea |
| Over the surface | 12,430 mi (20,004 km) |
How much land has land on the other side?
We worked it out with the same outlines the tool uses. We spread 20,000,000 points over the whole Earth on a Fibonacci lattice, which gives each one the same area (about 25.5 km²), and checked whether each point and its antipode fall inside any country. It turns out that 28.8% of the surface is land (large lakes count as land; the Caspian Sea doesn’t), and only 13.1% of that land has its antipode on land too (give or take 0.03%, since it’s a sample). Put another way: pick a random spot on land, and more than eight times out of ten its antipode is at sea.
Land backed by land on the other side covers just 3.8% of the Earth’s surface, and it comes in pairs: Antarctica with the Arctic (Greenland, Canada, Russia), China and Mongolia with Argentina and Chile, Southeast Asia with northern South America, and Spain with New Zealand. The countries with the most of it are Antarctica (3.9 million km²), China (2.5 million km²), Argentina (2.4 million km²), Greenland (1.8 million km²), Canada (1.5 million km²), and Indonesia (1.3 million km²).
The antipodes of the United States
Dig straight down almost anywhere in the contiguous US and you’ll come out in the southern Indian Ocean, between southern Africa and Australia. Using the Census state outlines on a lattice of about 3 km² per point, only 0.011% of the lower 48 has a land antipode (about 860 km²): small patches of Montana and Colorado, opposite the Kerguelen and Amsterdam islands in the French Southern Lands. The antipodes of the big cities all fall at sea: New York: 40.7° S, 106.1° E, Los Angeles: 34.0° S, 61.6° E, and Chicago: 41.8° S, 92.3° E. Honolulu’s lands in Botswana.
Alaska does a little better: 1.8% of it has an antipode on land, all in Antarctica. Hawaii is the exception: 100% of it sits opposite land, in southern Africa (Botswana 96% and Namibia 4%).
Frequently asked questions
If I dig a hole in the US, will I come out in China?
No. China is in the same (northern) hemisphere. From the lower 48 you’d almost certainly surface in the southern Indian Ocean; from Hawaii, in Botswana or Namibia.
Do many places have an antipode on land?
Very few: on the Natural Earth outlines, just 13.1% of the world’s land. Most of the planet is ocean, and most of the land is in the northern hemisphere.
How far away is the antipode?
Half a lap of the Earth: 12,430 miles (20,004 km) over the surface, along a meridian over both poles, and about 7,918 miles (12,742 km) in a straight line through the middle, the Earth’s diameter.
How accurate is it?
The antipode’s coordinates are exact. Whether it’s on land depends on the Natural Earth outlines, simplified to about 500 m (a third of a mile): near the coast or on very small islands it can be wrong.
Related tools
All toolsSources
- Countries: Admin 0 – Countries 1:10m · Natural Earth (public domain)
- US states and counties (Cartographic Boundary Files 2025) · U.S. Census Bureau (public domain)
- GeographicLib (distances and bearings on the WGS84 ellipsoid) · Charles F. F. Karney (MIT license)
- Place search and place names · Photon (Komoot), with OpenStreetMap data
- Base map · OpenFreeMap, with data © OpenStreetMap contributors