Antipode Finder
What's on the Other Side of the World?
Type your city below. We'll drill straight through the Earth and show you exactly where you'd come out — land or ocean.
Try a Famous Antipode
12,742
km through Earth
71%
of antipodes are ocean
320
cities loaded
How It Works
Find Your Antipode in Four Steps
The fastest way to answer the universal childhood question: if I dug straight through the Earth, where would I come out?
Type any city
Search for the place you want to start from — major cities and capitals are all in the dataset.
Or use your location
Tap the locate icon and the tool reads your coordinates, no signup or account.
Watch the globe drill through
A glowing line shoots through the Earth's core to the exact opposite point on the planet.
See what's actually there
Land or ocean? Which country? Closest city? You get a plain-English answer with real coordinates.
The 71% Rule
Why Your Antipode Is Probably Ocean
Earth's surface is roughly 71% water. But the continents don't scatter evenly — they bunch up. Almost all of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas sits in one half of the planet, and a vast empty stretch of the Pacific dominates the other.
Cartographers call them the Land Hemisphere (centred just outside Nantes, France) and the Water Hemisphere (centred east of New Zealand). The Land Hemisphere holds the maximum possible amount of dry ground for any half of Earth — and even it is still 53% water.
Run the maths and only about 4% of Earth's land has another piece of land directly opposite it. Almost everywhere you stand, drilling straight down would surface in the open ocean.
That's why this tool is more fun than you'd think. The handful of antipode pairs that do exist on land — Madrid ↔ Weber, Christchurch ↔ A Coruña, Beijing ↔ Bahía Blanca — feel like cosmic coincidences. They aren't. They're statistical scarcity.
Antipodes are a quirk of pure 3D geometry, so unlike Mercator distortion or other projection trickery, they aren't affected by which map you happen to be looking at. The 12,742 km tunnel is the same on every globe.
The Earth is 71% blank. The other 29% is a lottery ticket.
Antipodes of Major World Cities
Where Famous Cities Surface
Most of the world's big cities have ocean antipodes — but the exact spot they'd surface tells you something about how unevenly Earth's land is distributed.
Antipode of London
→ Pacific Ocean, near the Antipodes Islands
New Zealand's tiny Antipodes Islands are literally named for being the antipode of the British Isles.
Antipode of New York
→ Indian Ocean, far southwest of Perth
Most of the eastern United States sits opposite the deep Indian Ocean — no land for thousands of kilometres.
Antipode of Tokyo
→ South Atlantic Ocean, east of Argentina
Tokyo's antipode falls just off the Argentine coast in the open Atlantic.
Antipode of Paris
→ Pacific Ocean, near the Antipodes Islands
Like London, Paris's antipode is in the same lonely stretch of South Pacific.
Antipode of Beijing
Land→ near Bahía Blanca, Argentina
One of the most famous land-to-land antipodes — China's capital opposite Argentina's pampas.
Antipode of Madrid
Land→ near Weber, New Zealand
The often-quoted "Madrid is opposite Wellington" is roughly right — exact antipode is near Weber on the North Island.
Antipode of Sydney
→ Atlantic Ocean, between Bermuda and the Azores
Sydney's antipode is mid-Atlantic — about 1,500 km from any coastline.
Antipode of Moscow
→ Pacific Ocean, south of Easter Island
A piece of empty South Pacific — about as far from any land as you can get.
Antipode of Mumbai
→ Pacific Ocean, west of South America
India's biggest city sits opposite the open eastern Pacific.
Antipode of Singapore
Land→ near Cuenca, Ecuador
A near-direct line from Southeast Asia to the highlands of the Andes.
Antipode of Berlin
→ Pacific Ocean, near the Antipodes Islands
Most of central Europe maps to that same lonely stretch of South Pacific.
Antipode of Mexico City
→ Indian Ocean, southwest of Perth
Drilling through Earth from Mexico City surfaces in deep Indian Ocean water.
Antipode of Rio de Janeiro
→ Pacific Ocean, between Japan and the Mariana Islands
Rio sits opposite a quiet stretch of the western Pacific Ocean.
Antipode of Cape Town
→ Pacific Ocean, north of Hawaii
Cape Town's antipode is in the empty mid-Pacific north of the Hawaiian island chain.
Antipode of Toronto
→ Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia
Most of Canada's populated southeast sits opposite open Indian Ocean.
Antipode of Dubai
→ Pacific Ocean, west of Mexico
A long way from any coast — Dubai's antipode is deep eastern Pacific.
Antipode of Auckland
→ Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Morocco
Auckland's antipode is in the warm eastern Atlantic, near Africa's northwest coast.
Antipode of Reykjavík
→ Southern Ocean, off Antarctica's coast
Iceland's capital sits opposite the icy waters off East Antarctica.
Want to find your own city's antipode? Type any city into the search above. You can also spin a globe to pick a random destination or compare two countries at their real size.
The Famous Pairs
Cities That Almost Match
Land-to-land antipodes are rare, so these near-perfect pairs become legends. Each pair below sits within roughly 50 km of being a true mathematical antipode.
The original "Madrid is the antipode of Wellington" claim is approximate — the exact point is near Weber on New Zealand's North Island.
One of the closest big-city antipodes on Earth — the exact point is offshore Galicia, just minutes from A Coruña.
Argentina's coastal city sits almost exactly opposite the Chinese capital.
Close — the precise antipode falls in the Atlantic just east of the Argentine capital.
Bermuda's capital and Western Australia's biggest city are near-perfect opposites.
A near-direct line from a Southeast-Asian island-state to the Andean highlands of Ecuador.
Antipode Finder FAQ
Everything About Antipodes
What an antipode is, how to calculate one, and why so many of them are ocean.
What is an antipode?
An antipode is the point on the Earth's surface that is diametrically opposite a given point — if you drilled a perfectly straight tunnel through the centre of the Earth, you would emerge at your antipode. Every place on Earth has exactly one antipode.
How do you calculate a city's antipode?
It's simple geometry. The antipode of latitude φ, longitude λ is at latitude −φ, longitude λ ± 180°. So if you start at 40.4°N 3.7°W (Madrid), your antipode is at 40.4°S 176.3°E — a spot near Weber on New Zealand's North Island.
Why are most antipodes in the ocean?
Earth's surface is about 71% water and the continents cluster heavily in the northern and eastern hemispheres. The geographer Boris Yegiazaryan called the half of Earth with the most land the "Land Hemisphere" (centred near Nantes, France) and the other half the "Water Hemisphere" (centred east of New Zealand). Roughly 71% of any random point's antipode lands in ocean, and only about 4% of land has another land antipode.
How far is it through the Earth?
Always exactly the diameter of the Earth: about 12,742 km (7,917 miles). The surface distance between you and your antipode is always half the Earth's circumference: about 20,015 km (12,437 miles) — the maximum possible distance between any two points on the planet.
Is the time difference between a city and its antipode always 12 hours?
In terms of solar time, yes — if it's solar noon at your location, it's solar midnight at your antipode. Civil clock time can differ from solar time because of time zones and daylight saving, so for an exact comparison use a world clock that shows both cities side-by-side. The day/night flip itself is mathematically exact: when one side has sunrise, the other has sunset.
Are there any cities that are exact antipodes of each other?
Almost. The closest big-city pair is Christchurch, New Zealand and A Coruña, Spain — only about 30 km off perfect. Madrid and Wellington are often quoted as antipodes; the truth is Madrid's antipode is near Weber on New Zealand's North Island, around 50 km from Wellington. Beijing and Bahía Blanca, Argentina, are also near-perfect opposites.
Could you actually dig from one antipode to another?
Physically no — temperatures inside the Earth's core reach roughly 5,200°C and pressures crush any known material. But the famous "if I dug straight through the Earth" thought experiment is exactly what this antipode finder visualises.
Is the antipode finder free?
Yes. The tool is 100% free, with no signup and no ads. Use it as much as you like.
How accurate is the location returned by the tool?
Very accurate at the lat/lng level — the antipode is computed to the precision of your input city's coordinates. The "nearest city" returned is the closest match within ~250 km of the antipode point in our 320-city dataset; if there's no city that close we fall back to identifying the country (via point-in-polygon against open Natural Earth boundaries) or naming the ocean.
Sources & Methodology
Where the Numbers Come From
Every claim on this page is grounded in open, citable data. Click through to verify any number you see.
City coordinates
A curated set of 320 well-known world cities and capitals, sourced from the open lutangar/cities.json dataset and cross-checked against ISO 3166 country names.
lutangar/cities.jsonCountry borders
Natural Earth 1:110m cultural vectors, used to classify whether the antipode point is on land or in the ocean.
naturalearthdata.comLand vs Water Hemispheres
The classic finding that the "Land Hemisphere" is centred near Nantes, France and contains the maximum possible land area for any half of Earth. Roughly 71% of antipode points fall in ocean.
Wikipedia — Land and water hemispheresAntipode geometry
For latitude φ and longitude λ, the antipode is at (−φ, λ ± 180°). Through-Earth distance is 12,742 km (Earth's mean diameter); maximum surface distance is 20,015 km (half of Earth's circumference).
Wikipedia — AntipodesLast reviewed 2026-05-08 · Coordinates rounded for display; raw values match the cited sources.
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