Coordinates: 0°S 90°E
Eastern Hemisphere
The Eastern Hemisphere is a geographical term for the half of
Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses
Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the
antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little
land from pole to pole). It is also used to refer to Afro-Eurasia
(Africa and Eurasia) and Australia, in contrast with the Western
Hemisphere, which includes mainly North and South America.
The Eastern Hemisphere may also be called the "Oriental
Hemisphere". In addition, it may be used in a cultural or
geopolitical sense as a synonym for the "Old World".
Contents
Eastern Hemisphere
Geography
Demographics
See also
References
External links
Geography
The almost perfect circle (the earth is an oblate spheroid that is fatter around the equator), drawn with a line,
demarcating the Eastern and Western Hemispheres must be an arbitrarily decided and published convention,
unlike the Equator (an imaginary line encircling Earth, equidistant from its poles), which divides the Northern
and Southern Hemispheres. The prime meridian at 0° longitude and the antimeridian, at 180° longitude, are the
conventionally accepted boundaries, since they divide eastern longitudes from western longitudes. This
convention was established in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C. where
the standard time concepts of Canadian railroad engineer Sir Sandford Fleming were adopted. The
Hemispheres agreed do not correspond with exact continents. Portions of Western Europe, West Africa,
Oceania, and extreme northeastern Russia are in the Western Hemisphere, divorcing it from the continents
which form the touchstone for most geopolitical constructs of "the East" and "the West".
Consequently, the meridians of 20°W and the diametrically opposed 160°E are often used outside of matters of
physics and navigation,[1][2] which includes all of the European and African mainlands, but also includes a
small portion of northeast Greenland (typically reckoned as part of North America) and excludes more of
eastern Russia and Oceania (e.g., New Zealand). Prior to the global adoption of standard time, numerous
prime meridians were decreed by various countries where time was defined by local noon (thereby, local
meridian).
The center of the Eastern Hemisphere is located in the Indian Ocean at the intersection of the equator and the
90th meridian east, 910 km west of Indonesia in the Ninety East Ridge. The nearest land is Simeulue Island at
2°35′N 96°05′E.
The land mass of the Eastern Hemisphere is larger than that of the Western Hemisphere and has a wide variety
of habitats.
Demographics
82% of humans live in the Eastern Hemisphere, and 18% in the Western Hemisphere.[3]
See also
East Antarctica
Western Hemisphere
References
1. Olson, Judy M. "Projecting the hemisphere (http://www.gis.psu.edu/projection/chapter4.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20070814165725/http://www.gis.psu.edu/projection/chap
ter4.html) 2007-08-14 at the Wayback Machine", ch. 4 from Matching the map projection to the
need (http://www.gis.psu.edu/projection/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/200708182009
06/http://www.gis.psu.edu/projection/) 2007-08-18 at the Wayback Machine; Robinson, Arthur
H. & Snyder, John P., eds. 1997. Bethesda, MD: Cartography and Geographic Information
Society, American Congress on Surveying and Mapping.
2. "Eastern Hemisphere". Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2001. Springfield,
MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., p. 340.
3. How Much of Humanity is in Your Hemisphere? - Brilliant Maps (http://brilliantmaps.com/human
-hemisphere/)
External links
Media related to Eastern Hemisphere at Wikimedia Commons
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