Antipode Finder
The antipode is the farthest place from you on the globe — lat/lng flipped across the centre of the Earth.
By Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor · Updated October 2026
For example, New York's antipode sits at −40.7128, 105.9940 in the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia — while Madrid's lands in the Pacific just east of New Zealand, which is why Spain and New Zealand are Earth's famous antipodal pair.
How to use Antipode Finder
Through the centre, out the other side:
The Antipode Finder computes the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite a given place — the spot you would reach by tunnelling straight through the planet's centre. Enter a place or coordinates and read its opposite: latitude negated, longitude shifted by 180 degrees, shown on the map.
- 1Set a location or use GPS.
- 2Read the antipode coordinates and map pin.
What people use Antipode Finder for
1. Teaching the globe
Nothing corrects flat-map intuition like digging from your classroom and surfacing in an ocean you did not expect. The Central Angle Calculator prices the full 180° trip.
2. The Spain–New Zealand check
Most of Spain antipodes into New Zealand waters — the rare large land-to-land pairing. Run Madrid, Wellington, Buenos Aires (China) and Quito (Sumatra) and collect Earth's four famous answers.
3. Travel and trivia with receipts
'Directly below us right now is…' answered with coordinates, not gestures — including the honest usual answer: open ocean.
4. Antipodal time and weather intuition
Your antipode is roughly 12 time zones away and in the opposite season — the finder makes both facts a place instead of a slogan.
Worked examples
Quito, Ecuador (−0.1807, −78.4678) flips to (0.1807, 101.5322) — land, in the Sumatran jungle of Indonesia. One of the few capital-city antipodes that is not ocean.
Buenos Aires (−34.6037, −58.3816) antipodes to (34.6037, 121.6184) in eastern China near the Yellow Sea coast — the Argentina–China pairing that makes the two countries' trade routes' short way a through-Earth joke.
The flip, mechanically
Antipode arithmetic is the simplest on this site.
| Input | Antipode |
|---|---|
| Latitude φ | −φ (hemisphere swaps) |
| Longitude λ | λ + 180° if λ < 0, else λ − 180° |
| Time of day | Roughly opposite — solar noon meets solar midnight |
| Season | Opposite — July winter in Sydney's hemisphere logic |
Roughly 71% of Earth's surface is ocean, and only about 15% of land has a land antipode at all — most digs end in water. Land-to-land pairs concentrate in Spain↔New Zealand, Argentina↔China and Canada↔Antarctica's neighbourhood.
An antipode is the point exactly opposite you through the centre of the Earth
For latitude/longitude, the antipode flips the latitude sign and shifts longitude by 180°. The result is useful for global geography, distance intuition and exploring which regions lie on the opposite side of the planet.
Many land locations have ocean antipodes, and map projections can make the relationship look less intuitive than it is on a globe. Use great-circle distance if you also want to compare how close a city is to the exact opposite point.
How to interpret the result
The most common errors come from using a correct result to answer the wrong geographic question. Keep these points in mind for Antipode Finder:
- Treat climate and hardiness outputs as 30-year character, not this year's weather: a zone tells you what winters usually allow, and microclimates — walls, slopes, urban heat — shift a real garden half a zone either way.
- Remember that elevation models see bare terrain: no buildings, no forest canopy. A line-of-sight 'clear' verdict can still be blocked by a wood, and a horizon distance assumes open ground — treat results as the terrain baseline, then add land cover from local knowledge.
Limits & appropriate use
Terrain intelligence carries one dominant limit: the model sees bare earth at ~90 m spacing with metres of vertical error, and is blind to canopies, walls and wires. Every downstream answer inherits it — profiles show terrain truth with noisy amplitude, line-of-sight verdicts are pending trees, horizons assume open ground, and solar radiation averages assume an unshaded panel. The second limit is temporal: climate letters and hardiness zones are thirty-year character, not this year's behaviour, and seismicity is a mood, not a hazard model. Each result here is printed with its recipe precisely so these boundaries travel with the number.
The value proposition is screening-grade truth at zero cost: orientation for sites, gardens, antennas, shoots and curiosity, with the upgrade points clearly marked. When money or safety attaches to the answer — tower siting, flood insurance, structural shading, avalanche terrain — the escalation is professional: licensed survey, certified shade studies, regulatory flood determinations and geological hazard services. A good free tool makes that ladder visible instead of pretending to be the top of it.
- Construction and tower siting → licensed topographic survey.
- Flood decisions → regulatory determinations (FEMA/FIRM in the US).
- Solar finance → certified shade and production studies.
Data & methodology
The antipode is calculated by negating latitude and adding 180 degrees to longitude, normalised into the longitude range. Optional reverse geocoding provides an approximate label.
For source details, licences and model limitations, see Data Sources and Methodology.
Key terms worth knowing
- Refraction coefficient
- The standard 0.13 factor bending sightlines over the curvature.
- Antipode
- The diametrically opposite point; latitude flips, longitude shifts 180°.
Editorial guidance: MapBench explains the method and limitations so the tool can be used as a transparent reference, not as a black-box answer. For legal boundaries, safety-critical routing, surveying, engineering, regulated decisions or official statistics, verify the result with the responsible authority or a qualified professional.
Category: Earth Science. Results are intended for everyday analysis and planning unless a page explicitly states otherwise.
Method, assumptions & limits
- This tool’s method
- The antipode is calculated by negating latitude and adding 180 degrees to longitude, normalised into the longitude range. Optional reverse geocoding provides an approximate label.
- Before relying on the answer
- Check the location, height units and any model options shown by this calculator. A terrain lookup and a geometric Earth model answer different questions.
- What the result cannot establish
- Local terrain, atmospheric conditions and source resolution can matter more than numerical rounding. Do not use a planning result for safety-critical work.
Coverage: Worldwide. Search, basemap and external data requests may use third-party services; browser-based does not mean every operation is offline. Read the source and licence notes, calculation methodology and privacy policy. If a result looks inconsistent, report a correction with the inputs and mode used.
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about the calculation, accuracy and appropriate use.
Always land?
Many antipodes fall in ocean — the map shows exactly where.
Is this suitable for engineering or legal decisions?
Treat the result as planning or educational context unless the page explicitly says otherwise. Engineering, hazard and legal decisions should use authoritative specialist data.
Why can terrain data differ between sources?
Elevation and earth datasets vary in resolution, collection date and processing method. Small local features may not be represented equally.
Can I verify the data source?
Yes. MapBench documents major providers and methodology on the Data Sources and Methodology pages.
Will the antipode usually be ocean?
Yes — most of the time. With oceans covering about 71% of the surface and land clustered unevenly, most points (land or sea) face water on the far side. Land antipodes are the celebrated exception.
Is the antipode the farthest place from me?
On the surface, yes — the surface distance is half Earth's circumference (about 20,015 km along the great circle), the maximum any two surface points can achieve.
Through-Earth straight-line distance?
The tunnel chord equals Earth's diameter (about 12,742 km through the centre) — the Earth Chord tools compute chords for shallower angles; the antipode is their limiting case.
Same antipode for my whole city?
Nearly — a city spans a few hundredths of a degree, so its antipodes span the same few hundredths on the far side. One point stands honestly for the whole town.
What about the exact poles?
The North Pole's antipode is the South Pole — longitude becomes meaningless at both ends, the one place the flip formula politely breaks.
Do any two capitals antipode exactly?
Not exactly city-centre to city-centre, but the Madrid–Wellington region and Quito's Sumatran answer come close enough to run pub quizzes worldwide.
Antipode weather right now?
Opposite season guaranteed by geometry; the weather itself needs live data this finder does not claim to carry.
Related tools and resources
The trip's angle: the Central Angle From Distance Calculator; the arc: the Earth Arc Length Calculator; the latitude you flip: the Distance from Equator Calculator.
More free tools
Sources, methodology & editorial trust
- ✓ Browser-first processing where supported
- ✓ External sources are documented
- ✓ No account required for public tools
- ✓ Review data sources
Calculations are documented with their assumptions, limitations and source context rather than presented as unexplained answers.
Reviewed and maintained by Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor of MapBench.
Part of our boundaries & lookups hub
Antipode Finder sits in the boundaries & lookups cluster, alongside 39 other tools that answer neighbouring questions with different methods or datasets.
You may also need
When this answer is only part of the job, these clusters cover the next step.
Read the guide behind this tool
What County Am I In? How County Lookup Actually Works — County lines are legal boundaries, not vibes. How map tools resolve a point to a county — and why borders, unincorporated areas, and bad GPS fix create surprises.