Our planet is conventionally divided into four hemispheres. How are the boundaries between them defined? What are the characteristics of the hemispheres of the Earth?
Equator and meridian
It has the shape of a ball, slightly flattened at the poles - a spheroid. In scientific circles, its shape is usually called the geoid, that is, "like the Earth." The surface of the geoid is perpendicular to the direction of gravity at any point.
For convenience, the characteristics of the planet use conditional, or imaginary, lines. One of them is the axis. It runs through the center of the Earth, connecting the upper and lower parts, called the North and South Poles.
Between the poles, at an equal distance from them, is the next imaginary line, which is called the equator. It is horizontal and is a separator into the Southern (everything below the line) and Northern (everything above the line) hemispheres of the Earth. is a little over 40 thousand kilometers.
Another one conditional line- Greenwich, or This is a vertical line passing through the observatory in Greenwich. Meridian divides the planet into the Western and Eastern hemispheres, and is also starting point to measure geographic longitude.
The difference between the southern and northern hemispheres
The equator line horizontally divides the planet in half, while crossing several continents. Africa, Eurasia and South America are partially located in two hemispheres at once. The rest of the continents are located within one. So, Australia and Antarctica are completely in the southern part, and North America- in the north.
The hemispheres of the Earth have other differences. Thanks to Arctic Ocean at the pole, the climate of the Northern Hemisphere is generally milder than that of the Southern, where the land is located - Antarctica. The seasons in the hemispheres are opposite: winter in the northern part of the planet comes simultaneously with summer in the south.
The difference is observed in the movement of air and water. To the north of the equator, river flows and sea currents deviate to the right (river banks are usually steeper to the right), anticyclones rotate clockwise, and cyclones rotate counterclockwise. To the south of the equator, everything happens exactly the opposite.
Even the starry sky above is different. The pattern in each hemisphere is different. The main landmark for the northern part of the Earth is the polar star, the Southern Cross serves as a landmark. Above the equator, land dominates, and therefore the main number of people live here. below the equator total number of the inhabitants is 10%, since the oceanic part predominates.
Western and Eastern Hemispheres
East of prime meridian is located on the Earth. Within its limits is Australia, most of Africa, Eurasia, part of Antarctica. Approximately 82% of the world's population lives here. In a geopolitical and cultural sense, it is called the Old World, as opposed to the New World of the American continents. In the eastern part there is a deep trench and the highest mountain on our planet.
The Western Hemisphere of the Earth is located west of the Greenwich meridian. It covers the North and South America, part of Africa and Eurasia. It includes the entire Atlantic Ocean and most of the Pacific. Here is the longest mountain range in the world, largest volcano, the driest desert, the highest mountain lake and full-flowing river. Only 18% of the inhabitants live in the western part of the world.
Dateline
As already mentioned, the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth are separated by the Greenwich meridian. Its continuation is the 180th meridian, which outlines the border on the other side. It is the date line, it is here that today turns into tomorrow.
On both sides of the meridian, different calendar days. This is due to the peculiarities of the rotation of the planet. The International Date Line mostly passes through the ocean, but also crosses some islands (Vanua Levu, Taviuni, etc.). In these places, for convenience, the line is shifted along the land border, otherwise the inhabitants of one island would exist on different dates.
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There are four continents on Earth: Antarctica, America, Afro-Eurasia and Australia. The number of officially recognized continents is six: Africa, Eurasia, South and North America, Antarctica and Australia. There is an opinion that the continents are not 6, but 7: in the territory inhabited by penguins, there is no life around the South Pole with huge blocks of ice, but many scientists still consider it to be another continent.
We all went to school, studied geography and we know that the equator - the central parallel of the Earth - conditionally divides our Earth into the northern and southern hemispheres, each with its own characteristics. Which continents are in the Northern Hemisphere and which are in the Southern? After all, it so happened that not all continents belong strictly to one of the two hemispheres: the equator "divides into parts" Africa and Eurasia, as well as South America.
The remaining three continents belong entirely to one or the second of the hemispheres. Therefore, if you are casually asked in which hemisphere the mainland of North America is located, then the correct answer will be in the North, while Antarctica and Australia are located in the South.
Comparison
What is the difference between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern?
What continents are in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth?
It turns out that the Northern Hemisphere is more civilized, inhabited by almost all people on the planet and includes almost all the land area on Earth.
Eurasia
It is divided by the equator, and its European part belongs to northern hemisphere. As for Asia, this hemisphere includes all countries except for almost all of Indonesia and East Timor.
It stretches over more than 54 million square meters, and is the only continent that is washed by oceans on all sides. Eurasia owes its diversity of relief to its location on 6 tectonic platforms. Here are the highest mountains and the deepest lake - Baikal. A third of the population of the planet Earth lives in 108 states of this continent.
North America
This continent is 100% located in the Northern Hemisphere. In total, it includes 23 states.
On all sides, North America is washed by oceans, its central part is represented by a plain. The original inhabitants of the mainland are Indians and Eskimos.
South America
It would be interesting to know not only which continents are in the Northern Hemisphere and which ones are in the Southern Hemisphere, but also which countries are included in them. Entirely in the Northern Hemisphere are such countries of South Africa as Venezuela and Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. As for the partial location, it characterizes countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and also Ecuador. Po occupies more than 17 million square meters and is washed by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the area is represented by plateaus and plains. The indigenous people are the Indians.
Africa
Part of which continent is located in the Northern Hemisphere (two thirds of its territory), and part is in the Southern? This is Africa. The following countries are completely located there: Algeria and Benin, Gambia and Burkina Faso. It also includes Ghana and Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau and Egypt. Countries such as Western Sahara, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, as well as Liberia, Mauritania and Morocco are also included in the "above the equator" part. This also includes Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Ethiopia and many other countries - they can be seen on map Partially in the Northern Hemisphere are Gabon and Uganda, Kenya and Congo, as well as Somalia.
The African territory has more than 30 million square meters and is represented mainly by plains and mountains. The longest river, the Nile, flows here, the mainland is divided into five regions and includes 62 countries.
Oceania
Entirely in the Northern Hemisphere are the Marshallese state of Palau, Micronesia, and partly - the country of Kiribati.
constellation map
southern hemisphere
Constellations are arbitrarily taken stellar groups, as they are seen from the earth and completely independent of the actual distances and possible interconnection of the stars. The division of stars into constellations dates back to the deepest antiquity. Most of the constellations transmitted to us by the Arabs from the Greeks undoubtedly originated in the primitive pre-Semitic cultures of Mesopotamia. The main place among them is occupied by the zodiac constellations. The themes for the zodiac constellations were the hoary legends of primitive mankind, ideas about its fate, less often the personification of astronomical and meteorological phenomena. The oldest names of the constellations were abbreviations for myths.
Astronomer Jan Hevelius
Ptolemy in his work "Almagest" canonized the following 48 ancient constellations, which are still called Ptolemaic. Zodiac constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Northern constellations: Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Dragon, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, Bootes, Northern Crown, Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus, Charioteer, Ophiuchus, Snake, Arrow, Eagle, Dolphin, Foal, Pegasus, Triangle. Southern constellations: Whale, Orion, River, Hare, Dog large, small, Ship, Hydra, Bowl, Raven, Centaurus, Wolf, Altar, Southern Crown, Southern Fish. Ptolemy did not consider Coma Veronica to be a separate constellation.
Arab stargazers, in addition to lunar houses, gave various names for individual bright stars. Having become acquainted with the astronomy of the Greeks and having translated Ptolemy's Almagest, they changed some names according to the position of the stars in the drawings of the Ptolemaic constellations. Made in the 12th century latin translation"Almagest" from Arabic, and in the XVI - directly from Greek according to found manuscripts. The stars of the southern hemisphere, unknown to Greek astronomers, were broken down into constellations much later. Some of them were outlined by the Arabs.
There is no doubt that the navigators of the 15th and 16th centuries (Vespucci, Corsali, Pigafetta, Peter Medinsky, Gutman) gradually assembled new constellations during their travels to the southern seas. They were put in order by Peter Dirk Keizer. During his stay on the island of Java (1595), he identified the locations of 120 southern stars and placed constellation figures on them. The following 13 constellations were included in the Bayer (1603) and Barch (1624) atlases based on the Keyser inventory: Phoenix, gold fish, Chameleon, Flying fish, Southern cross, Water snake, Fly, Bird of paradise, Southern triangle, Peacock, Indian, Crane, Toucan. Of these, the Southern Cross was known to Ptolemy and was part of the Centaurus.
The current names of the constellations and stars represent an amalgam of these lists and translations. The ancient drawings of the constellations are completely lost. Only distorted figures on Arabic globes of the thirteenth century have come down to us; for example, on a globe in the Borghese Museum in Veletri (1225), in the Mathematical Society in Dresden (1279), in the London Astronomical Society, etc. At the beginning of the 16th century, the famous Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer painted the constellations according to their description by Ptolemy.
Unfortunately, not a single original copy of Dürer's drawings has survived. Dürer's drawings, modified by other artists, were reprinted in the star atlases of Bayer (1603), Flamsteed (1729). Then the figures of the constellations of the newest layout appeared. Currently, constellation drawings are no longer printed. The merit of expelling the "menagerie" from astronomical atlases belongs to Harding. He published in 1823 a celestial atlas, where only the boundaries of the constellations were plotted.