Are you talking about French Guiana or are you using a different definition of “western hemisphere”?
Anything west of 0 degrees longitude (until 180 degrees)? Zero degrees longitude goes through Greenwich, Englend, so quite a bit of France is south and west of it, as is most of Spain and all of Portugal.
Yeah, so it’s the latter then. Most of us here are operating under the assumption that Europe, Britain, and Africa are entirely in the eastern hemisphere.
Exactly, as can be seen from the 0 degree line on this map. Maybe not quite a quarter, but a decent chunk, including all of the west coast.
Colophon (currently about three and a half miles inside the western hemisphere)
Though literally the “Western Hemisphere” is the half of the globe with latitude between 0.000001 degrees west and 179.999999 degrees west, many people use it to mean the continents of North and South America. Personally, I think it’s a silly usage – why not say “the Americas” – but it’s a very common uasge as well.
There is a peninsula in Lake Erie that has a portion belonging to Michigan, but can only be driven to from Ohio. For Google map buffs, type in 41.73763182,-83.4571266 and zoom in to see it.
From Monroe, MI, it is farther to drive to Ironwood, MI than to Chattanooga, TN.
I haven’t really come across that usage over here. But then it’s not really a commonly used phrase in the UK as far as I know (the country being split between the two hemispheres might have something to do with that, of course).
On a related note, I went to Greenwich the other week. While there I tested the claim that the zero-degree meridian as used by GPS is over 300 feet off from the actual on-the-ground Greenwich meridian. It is, too, and (according to my GPS unit which claimed 9ft accuracy at the time) misses the entire observatory complex.
Here is a rough Google Maps sketch based on where my GPS read zero.
That’s pretty cool.
Back in the 70s/80s, there were some white supremacist nutsos who were using a peninsula jutting down from Missouri into Arkansas, belonging to, but inaccessible by land from, Arkansas. They got raided and found to be sitting on quite the cache of weapons, gold, etc.
Somewhere in this vicinity, I guess? Looks like there’s a whole bunch of such peninsulas.
Amarillo straddles Potter and Randall counties, FWIW.
Yup, that’s the area. I don’t recall exactly which one, though. The group was called the Covenant, the Sword, & the Arm of the Lord. Lovely bunch.
Maybe it’s continental drift and the widening of the Atlantic Ocean since the observatory was built?
:: d&r ::
(That’s one place I really regret missing when I was in London. And I was staying near Rotherhithe tube, as well, so it was only a hop, skip, and a jump away (plus a line change onto the Docklands Light Railway, then a southward shunt onto the Lewisham branch…oh wait, I’m starting to sound like a Mornington Crescent player again…)
The last time (but one) time I stayed in London, my wiofe and I stayed with an old friend of hers near Greenwich, so one morning I walked over. An inter-hemispherical walk. Then I walked north under the Thames, from Cutty Sark past Mudchute up to Canary Wharf/ So, is walking under the Thames allowed in Mornington Crescent?
Only on alternate Thursdays, when walking in general is allowed under the Pilkington Protocol (and Platform Doors are optional).
What?
Lazlo, the only reason I clicked into this thread was because of that quote. I’m glad to see you could oblige.
Ditto in Ottawa, where the street grid is also mostly oriented to the Ottawa river, which turns from its general SE course and runs NE at this point. Parts of Gatineau, Québec are actually west of parts of Ottawa.
Actually, you can’t make that assertion about townships. In Ohio, for example, the township has quite a bit of traditional governmental power, including elected officials, police power, fire, roads, etc. Funny part is that townships include the cities within their boundaries, so unless the city has opted out of being part of the township’s governmental structure (some do), you can be getting services from both! :eek:
As I said, this varies from place to place, but my experience is that for the most part (especially outside large metropolitan areas), Ohio townships do hardly any of these things. The elected officials constitute for the most part a board of supervisors who have very minor (if any) functions and maybe two or three others; for the most part there are no township police departments to speak of (they rely on the county sheriff); fire service is provided by volunteers funded by donations; and taxing authority is exercised directly by the local school district. Most services are provided directly by the county.
In any case, whether or not you are right or I am, my point is that Ohio townships are very unlike New York/New England towns, which are like mini full-democracies providing essentially all the relevant governmental services.
Not really an oddity, unless you’re unaware of certain geographical truths, as I was…
Recently, I spoke with a young woman who was playing bagpipes at the Chicago Art Institute. She had said she was from Galicia, Spain. I expressed wonder that there should be Spanish bagpipes, seeing as it was essentially an Irish cultural thing - in my mind. Of course, she explained to me that Ireland was only a short trip over the water (about 500 miles, I see) and it is natural for the pipes to have found their way to Spain. (And what a wondrous performance it was, too.)
Also, if anyone remembers MAD magazine when it was funny (even long before Saturday Night Live was funny) there was a feature called “Strangely Believe It.” In it, it was pointed out that there’s a woman in Rhode Island who has a potato farm larger than the entire state of Texas. For years, I was puzzled by that.
My understanding is that the pre-Roman, pre-Germanic people of Spain and Portugal are known as Celtiberians (as in Celts of Iberia), and that there is even a legend that the Goidelic peoples (Irish, Scots, Manx, as opposed to the Brythonic Welsh, Breton, and Cornish) are descendant from from immigrants from Spain. And, well, “Galicia.” That’s a bit of a giveaway. It seems to me perfectly plausible that the Spanish bagpipes are the result of old cultural ties to Celtic civilisation.