Antipode
If you pushed a giant skewer straight through the center of the Earth, it is the exact spot where it would poke out on the other side.
Definition The point on Earth's surface directly opposite a given location, connected by a straight line passing through the planet's center. In a straight line, it is the farthest possible place on Earth from where you are standing.
A Skewer Through the Globe
Imagine the Earth as a round apple. If you push a toothpick straight through its core, it pokes through the skin on the opposite side. Just like those two holes, any two points on Earth directly opposite each other through the planet's center are antipodal twin points, or antipodes.
Finding an antipode on a map is easy once you know the rules. For latitude, simply flip North to South (or South to North). For example, if Seoul is at about 37° North, its antipode sits at 37° South.
For longitude, travel halfway around the globe—exactly 180 degrees. If you are at 127° East, subtract 127 from 180 to get 53° West. The resulting coordinates give you the spot that directly faces your location across the center of the Earth.
Where Would You End Up if You Dug Straight Down?
As a kid, you might have imagined digging a hole in the sandbox all the way to the other side of the world. But if you dug straight down through the center of the Earth from Korea, you would not hit land—you would emerge in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Uruguay and Argentina.
Surprisingly, the antipode of most land on Earth is ocean. That is because water covers over 70 percent of our planet, and most continents cluster in the Northern Hemisphere.
Only about 3 percent of Earth's surface features land on both opposite sides. Rare land-to-land antipodes do exist: digging straight down from Madrid, Spain puts you in New Zealand, and parts of northern China connect directly to Argentina.
Opposite Seasons, Opposite Time
Antipodes are not just the farthest apart in space; their seasons and clocks are completely flipped too. Because one sits in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere, a snowy winter in Korea means blazing summer heat at its antipode.
The time of day is offset by roughly 12 hours as well. When you eat lunch at noon, the other side is sleeping at midnight. Day and night are entirely reversed.
In reality, Earth is an oblate spheroid that bulges slightly at the equator rather than a flawless sphere. While surface topography causes tiny geometric variations, an antipode remains the farthest possible point on Earth from where you stand.
🤔 Common misconceptions
If you dig a hole straight through the Earth from Korea, you will end up in the United States or Brazil.
The exact opposite point of Korea is in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off the coast of Uruguay.
🧺 Where you meet it
The antipode is the exact opposite point on Earth through its center—the farthest place from you, where seasons and day-night cycles are completely reversed.