A SENSE OF PLACE Upper Primary 4..5

17
Longitude lines are not parallel since
they meet at the poles. There are 24 lines
of Longitude and there were different lines
of longitude being used as a starting
point. However, a universal agreement
was reached to designate one common
longitude line as the PRIME MERIDIAN.
This line at 0 o is the Greenwich Meridian
or the zero degrees (0 o ) line of Longitude.
It passes through the town of Greenwich
in England.
Now with 0 o being in the centre, the
lines are identified by measurements to
both the east and the west using zero
degrees as their starting point.
Consequently, we read eastwards from
the 0 o line to the 180 0 line East Longitude
and westwards from the 0 0 to the 180 0
West Longitude. The 180 0 East and 180 0
West Longitude line is the same line.
ACTIVITY
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The International Dateline
THE TIME FACTOR
Lines of Longitude are referred to as
meridians (midday lines) because all
places along any line of Longitude have
midday (noon) at the same time. The
180th Meridian directly intersects four (4)
countries, and those countries could have
had different time zones within their
borders. They include Fiji, Kiribati, Russia,
and the United States. The International
Date Line follows part of the 180 o
longitude line but diverts around these
land masses to prevent such a confusing
situation.