Original MapBench study · 2026-10-14
Which Major Cities Sit Closest to the Prime Meridian?
We compare city-centre longitudes with 0° and convert the angular separation into an approximate surface distance at each latitude.
By Aladdin, Founder & Editor of MapBench
Research question: Which major-city centres in the dataset sit closest to the Greenwich Prime Meridian?
| Rank | City | Country | Longitude | Approx. distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London | United Kingdom | -0.1278° | 9 km |
| 2 | Accra | Ghana | -0.1870° | 21 km |
| 3 | Valencia | Spain | -0.3763° | 32 km |
| 4 | Toulouse | France | 1.4442° | 116 km |
| 5 | Birmingham | United Kingdom | -1.8904° | 128 km |
| 6 | Manchester | United Kingdom | -2.2426° | 149 km |
| 7 | Paris | France | 2.3522° | 172 km |
| 8 | Barcelona | Spain | 2.1686° | 181 km |
| 9 | Glasgow | United Kingdom | -4.2518° | 266 km |
| 10 | Algiers | Algeria | 3.0588° | 273 km |
| 11 | Brussels | Belgium | 4.3517° | 306 km |
| 12 | Antwerp | Belgium | 4.4025° | 307 km |
| 13 | Rotterdam | Netherlands | 4.4777° | 307 km |
| 14 | Madrid | Spain | -3.7038° | 314 km |
| 15 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | 4.9041° | 333 km |
| 16 | Lagos | Nigeria | 3.3792° | 374 km |
| 17 | Lyon | France | 4.8357° | 376 km |
| 18 | Dublin | Ireland | -6.2603° | 416 km |
| 19 | Marseille | France | 5.3698° | 435 km |
| 20 | Abidjan | Ivory Coast | -4.0083° | 444 km |
Method
Longitude separation from 0° is converted to local east-west distance using cos(latitude).
Important caveat
This is a ranking inside MapBench's curated major-city dataset, not a complete census of every settlement on Earth. Population values are approximate and city-centre coordinates are used consistently for comparison.
The study is useful for reproducible geographic comparison and method demonstrations. It should not be cited as an official global urban ranking without this scope note.
Reproduce the measurements
Use MapBench tools and the downloadable dataset to check individual values or reproduce the ranking.