There is a town in Spain, if you want to change country, you just have to cross the street. This is the municipality of El Pertús, a few kilometers from Figueres in Girona. The western part of this place is from France, the eastern part is from Spain. The interesting thing is, if you go to the center of the city, on Avenida Catalunya and stop on the west sidewalk, you’re in France. If you do it in the east, in Spain.

Well, we know what the point is that belongs to another country closer to Spain. But do we know which one is the furthest? To find it we need to know the term “antipodal”. In geography, this is the place on the earth’s surface that is diametrically opposed to one another. Or the same thing is the point where we would find ourselves if we drew an imaginary straight line through the center of the earth.

If we take Madrid’s Plaza del Sol as a reference point, its antipode located in New Zealand, east of the island. Specifically, near the town of Pahiatua. For most parts of Spain, New Zealand is the furthest point from Earth. For example it would be in Auckland in Seville and Malaga. However, as in Barcelona or Valencia, the antipodes of many cities coincide right at sea.

To calculate the antipodes of different cities, you need to know their latitude and longitude coordinates. The good news is that there are websites that let you do this quickly and easily, like Antipode Map or OmniCalculator. It is enough to move the cursor to the desired position on the map so that the antipode appears on the other side.

Map extracted from FindLatitudeAndLongitude.com

The distance between Madrid and Pahiatua is about 20,000 kilometers. no less almost a 22 hour flight. Also, other cities close to Madrid’s antipode are Castlepoint, Wellington (54 km), Palmerston North, Manawatu-Wanganui (59 km), Linton Military Camp (61 km), Otane, Hawke’s Bay (66 km), or Tokomaru (67 km).

How is antipodal calculated?

As explained in this Geodata article, to manually calculate the antipode of any place you need to follow three steps and find the following variables: Latino (Latitude at the point of origin). LngO (Length at point of origin), to be (latitude at antipodal) and LngA (longitude in antipodal).

The coordinates of Madrid in degrees, minutes, and seconds are: 40°24’59.4” N 3°42’9.2” W. However, it is easier to use decimal format for calculations, so: Latino = 40,4165 ° and LngO = -3.70256°

The next step is to calculate the latitude of the antipode (to be = – Latino = -40.4165°). Since latitude has a positive sign (north direction), it must have a negative sign (south direction) of the antipode. The third and final step is to calculate the length of the antipode (LngA = LngO ±180° = -3.70256 + 180° = 176.29744°). Since longitude is negative, add 180° to get the final longitude to be in the range (-180, 180). If it were positive, 180° would be subtracted.

Result: Madrid’s antipode is located at the following coordinates: (to be, LngA) = (-40,4165, 176.29744). In degrees, minutes and seconds format: 40°24’59.4” D 3°42’9.2” D.

Image: Antipode Map (FindLatitudeAndLongitude.com)