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Famous antipodal pairs

Click any card to drill from that city and see where it surfaces.

About

What is an antipodal point?

An antipodal point is the location on Earth's surface that is diametrically opposite to a given point — the place you'd emerge if you could drill a perfectly straight tunnel through the center of the Earth. The word comes from the Greek antipodes, meaning "with feet opposite."

Calculating your antipode is straightforward geometry: negate your latitude and shift your longitude by 180°. If you stand at 40°N, 74°W (New York City), your antipode is at 40°S, 106°E — deep in the southern Indian Ocean, roughly 1,500 km south of Western Australia.

The surprising fact: over 71% of Earth's surface is ocean, and the distribution of land vs ocean is highly asymmetric between hemispheres. The northern hemisphere holds most of the world's landmass, while the southern hemisphere is predominantly water. This means the antipode of almost any city you can name drops into open ocean.

The China myth

Why digging doesn't reach China

The "dig to China" idiom is deeply embedded in English-speaking culture, but it's geographically impossible for anyone in the United States or Europe. China sits at roughly 20–50°N latitude, in the same hemisphere as both countries.

The antipode of New York (40.7°N, 74°W) is the Indian Ocean at 40.7°S, 106°E. The antipode of London (51.5°N, 0.1°W) is the South Pacific Ocean at 51.5°S, 179.9°E — about 2,000 km east of New Zealand. Neither is anywhere near China.

The only people for whom digging "toward China" makes geographic sense are those living in Argentina or Chile — whose antipodes do land in parts of East Asia. For everyone else, it's ocean all the way down.

Earth's layers

What your drill passes through

Continental Crust

20–400 °C

0–35 km

Rock you could hold. The thinnest skin on the planet.

Upper Mantle

500–900 °C

35–660 km

Solid rock that creeps like cold honey over millennia.

Lower Mantle

900–3 700 °C

660–2 890 km

Silicate under 1.3 million atmospheres of pressure.

Outer Core

4 400–5 000 °C

2 890–5 150 km

Liquid iron generating Earth's magnetic field.

Inner Core

≈ 5 400 °C

5 150–6 371 km

A solid iron ball as hot as the surface of the Sun.

FAQ

Common questions

What is an antipode?

An antipode is the point on Earth directly opposite any given location. Mathematically: negate the latitude and shift the longitude by 180°. If you're at 51°N, 0°E (London), your antipode is 51°S, 180°W — in the Pacific Ocean south of New Zealand.

If I dig from the US, where do I come out?

Anywhere in the continental United States lands in the Indian Ocean, south of the Kerguelen Islands. None of it is near China. Both the US and China are in the northern hemisphere — so neither is the other's antipode.

Is the 'dig to China' myth true?

No. China's antipodal region is mostly South Atlantic Ocean, near Argentina. Digging from the UK lands somewhere between New Zealand and Antarctica, not Asia.

What percentage of land antipodes are ocean?

Over 90% of the Earth's land surface is antipodal to open ocean. Land-to-land antipodal pairs are rare: New Zealand / Spain, Argentina / China, and a few island pairs are the classic examples.

How hot is the Earth's core?

The inner core is approximately 5,400 °C — comparable to the surface temperature of the Sun. The outer core is 4,400–5,000 °C and liquid. Pressure at the center reaches 360 gigapascals, roughly 3.6 million times atmospheric pressure.

How does the antipode calculator work?

The math is simple: antipode latitude = −latitude, antipode longitude = longitude ± 180°. Country detection uses the d3-geo geoContains function against the Natural Earth 110m dataset. Ocean naming uses geographic bounding boxes.

Reference

Antipode of every country (capital city)

Where each capital city emerges after drilling straight through the Earth. Click "Drill →" to explore.

Country	Capital	Antipode location
Afghanistan	Kabul	South Pacific Ocean
Argentina	Buenos Aires	Shanghai area, China
Australia	Canberra	North Atlantic Ocean
Brazil	Brasília	Philippine Sea
Canada	Ottawa	South Indian Ocean
Chile	Santiago	Yellow Sea (China coast)
China	Beijing	South Atlantic Ocean (Argentina)
Colombia	Bogotá	Indian Ocean (off Indonesia)
Denmark	Copenhagen	South Pacific Ocean
Egypt	Cairo	South Pacific Ocean
France	Paris	South Pacific Ocean (near NZ)
Germany	Berlin	South Pacific Ocean
Greece	Athens	South Pacific Ocean
India	New Delhi	South Pacific Ocean
Indonesia	Jakarta	Pacific Ocean (near Ecuador)
Iran	Tehran	South Pacific Ocean
Italy	Rome	South Pacific Ocean
Japan	Tokyo	South Atlantic (Uruguay coast)
Kenya	Nairobi	Pacific Ocean (north of Kiribati)
Mexico	Mexico City	South Indian Ocean
Netherlands	Amsterdam	South Pacific Ocean
New Zealand	Wellington	Spain / Atlantic coast
Nigeria	Abuja	South Pacific Ocean
Norway	Oslo	South Pacific Ocean
Pakistan	Islamabad	South Pacific Ocean
Peru	Lima	South China Sea / Gulf of Thailand
Philippines	Manila	Bolivia / Brazil border
Poland	Warsaw	South Pacific Ocean
Portugal	Lisbon	South Pacific Ocean (near NZ)
Russia	Moscow	South Pacific Ocean
Saudi Arabia	Riyadh	South Pacific Ocean
South Africa	Pretoria	North Pacific Ocean (west of Hawaii)
South Korea	Seoul	South Atlantic Ocean (Argentina)
Spain	Madrid	Wellington, New Zealand (land!)
Sweden	Stockholm	South Pacific Ocean
Thailand	Bangkok	Pacific coast of Peru
Turkey	Ankara	South Pacific Ocean
Ukraine	Kyiv	South Pacific Ocean
United Kingdom	London	South Pacific Ocean (near NZ)
United States	Washington DC	South Indian Ocean
Vietnam	Hanoi	South Pacific Ocean

Dig a hole to theother side of Earth.