Mitad del Mundo The 30-meter-tall monument, built between 1979 and 1982, was constructed to mark the point where the equator passes through the country in the geodetic datum in use in Ecuador at that time.
A line down the center of the east-facing staircase, and across the plaza, was meant to mark the equator.
Now we have great mapping systems like GPS and Google maps. This lead us to now know that the equator is placed about 240 meters north of the marked line. This discrepancy is partially due to increased accuracy but primarily due to a different choice of mapping datum.
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| Random concert going on. About Peru we think! |
Similarly, the line marking the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in England is roughly 100 meters from the exact zero of longitude as indicated by GPS receivers.
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| Straddling the equator. In both the North and South Hemisphere |
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