An unexpectedly controversial popped up on social media platform X on Tuesday, stating that the island nation of Kiribati is the only country that sits in all four hemispheres. People in the replies had a lot to say (which isn’t exactly an unusual thing on this particular site) – but what kind of claims were they making, and who was right?
Some people took issue with there being four hemispheres, with many pointing out that “hemi” indicates something is split into half or two. However, in this case, the original poster (OP) is right.
The Earth can be split in half in more than one way. In fact, you can divide it in any number of the infinite ways that might tickle your fancy (we are simply making imaginary lines on a floating orb in the never-ending abyss of space, after all), but the way splits the globe into North and South, and East and West – in other words, four different hemispheres.
The North- divide uses the equator, running horizontally, which people in the replies also mistook for the country of Ecuador. Don’t worry though, this South American nation hasn’t magically been transported to the Pacific Ocean – the image used by OP featured Spanish text, and “Ecuador” just so happens to be the Spanish word for “equator”.
As for the Eastern and Western hemispheres, though some geographers like to split them a little differently, in this case they are separated vertically by the 180th meridian or antemeridian. This is opposite the prime meridian, where longitude is set at 0, and forms the basis of the International Date Line (more on that later).
If you put lines representing both sets of hemispheres on the globe at the same time, bits of Kiribati could be found in all four – but is it the only country that does this? Several users were quick to pipe up claiming that it isn’t, pointing out that the United Kingdom and France have overseas territories that would also make them eligible – though given their dodgy , not everyone thinks they count.
Its hemisphere-straddling abilities aren’t the only thing that makes Kiribati unique. Remember the International Date Line? Kiribati used to straddle it, meaning that some neighboring islands had a time difference of 23 hours between them.
That was something of an administrative nightmare apparently, so in 1995, authorities announced they’d swing the date line significantly eastward so that all 33 islands had the same date.
“We just did it and told the world,” said Michael Walsh, the Kiribati Honorary Consul to the UK, speaking to the in 2011.
Efficient.