What is the Prime Meridian?

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    Have you ever used a map to locate a point using latitude and longitude and wondered what that vertical line on center of the map is?

     The Prime Meridian is the imaginary line of zero degrees longitude that runs from the North Pole to the South pole through the UK, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana.

     The Prime Meridian is an important innovation because it established time zones and the spatial reference system (latitude and longitude). It was adopted globally in October 1884 during the International Meridian Conference at Washington D.C.

     This made communication and travel easier because it created a global time system and makes it possible to locate a specific point on Earth using latitude and longitude.


By Caroline Lucas and Jade Mulcahy