Antipodes: where would you come out if you dug through the Earth?
Tap any place on the globe or the map. The globe opens into a cross-section and follows the tunnel through the crust, mantle and core to the spot where you would come out on the other side of the Earth.
38.90° S 102.96° E · about 1,190 km to the nearest land (Australia)
Time
38 min 10 s
falling
Speed
0.0 km/s
Pressure
1 atm
as at the surface
StartExit
Examples:
Drag to turn the globe. Tap a place or press “Dig”. Use the slider to stop anywhere in the tunnel and the corner button to expand the view. “My location” uses your location only in your browser.
Tunnel through the center12,739 km
Along the surface the same place is 20,015 km away in every direction: every great circle through the start also passes through its antipode.
Free fall38 min
In an empty, airless tunnel you would fall for 38 min 10 s. At the center you would reach about 9.9 km/s, then slow down and stop right at the exit. We ignore the Earth's rotation, which would press you against the wall.
Diggingabout 19,700 years
At the pace of the world's deepest borehole: on the Kola Peninsula, 19 years of drilling reached 12,262 m, about 0.1% of this distance.
Land opposite landabout 13%
Only that much land has land on the other side (about 4% of the Earth's surface). The largest pairs are Argentina and China, Antarctica and Greenland, and Antarctica and Canada. The best known pair is Spain and New Zealand.
Dig “straight down” and you miss the center
If you dug from here straight along the plumb line (a string with a weight), you would pass about 21 km from the Earth's center and come out about 42 km farther from the equator than the antipode. The Earth is slightly flattened, so the plumb line points at its center only at the equator and the poles.
Antipodes and a tunnel through the Earth: explanation and examples
An antipode is the point exactly on the opposite side of the Earth. Below we explain how to find it, what lies opposite well-known places and what you would meet in a tunnel through the planet's center.
How do you find an antipode?
All you need are coordinates. Move the latitude to the other hemisphere and add or subtract 180° of longitude. Warsaw lies at 52.23° N 21.01° E, so its antipode is 52.23° S 158.99° W.
Along the surface the antipode is always 20,015 km from the start, in every direction, because every great circle passes through both points. In a straight line through the Earth's center it is 12,730 km from Warsaw.
What lies on the other side of well-known places?
Only these examples come out on land: Beijing, Madrid and Honolulu. All the other tunnels end in the ocean.
Antipodes of selected places
Start
Antipode
What is there
Nearest land
Warsaw
52.23° S 158.99° W
Pacific Ocean
about 1,540 km (New Zealand)
London
51.51° S 179.87° E
Pacific Ocean
about 210 km (New Zealand)
Washington
38.90° S 102.96° E
Indian Ocean
about 1,190 km (Australia)
Beijing
39.90° S 63.59° W
Argentina
exit on land
Pretoria
25.75° N 151.81° W
Pacific Ocean
about 700 km (United States)
Madrid
40.42° S 176.30° E
New Zealand
exit on land
Buenos Aires
34.60° N 121.62° E
Ocean
about 130 km (China)
Honolulu
21.31° S 22.14° E
Botswana
exit on land
Calculated on the Natural Earth 1:50m map with small islands added from the 1:10m map, as in the tool above. Distances rounded to 10 km.
Why do you usually come out in the ocean?
Oceans and seas cover about 71% of the Earth's surface, and the land is concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. That is why only about 13% of land has land on the other side, about 4% of the planet's surface. The largest pairs are Argentina and China, Antarctica and Greenland, and Antarctica and Canada.
No place in Poland reaches land: the whole country has the South Pacific on the other side.
What do you pass in a tunnel through the center?
At the Earth's center the pressure reaches about 364 GPa, or about 3.6 million atmospheres (PREM model). The interior is thousands of degrees hot, so such a tunnel remains a thought experiment. The deepest hole ever drilled, the Kola borehole, is 12,262 m deep, and digging through the whole Earth at its pace would take about 19,700 years.
Crust: from the surface to about 35 km under the continents (5 to 10 km under the oceans).
Upper mantle: from 35 to 660 km.
Lower mantle: from 660 to 2,891 km.
Outer core (liquid): from 2,891 to 5,150 km.
Inner core (solid): from 5,150 to 6,371 km, the very center.
How long would the fall take?
In an empty, airless tunnel you would fall for 38 min 10 s. You pass the Earth's center fastest, at about 9.9 km/s, then slow down and stop right at the exit.
The textbook answer is about 42 minutes, but it assumes the Earth is equally dense throughout. The dense core speeds up the fall, and the PREM model gives about 38 minutes, the same as A. R. Klotz's 2015 paper. We ignore the Earth's rotation: in any tunnel other than pole to pole it would press the traveller against the wall.
Dig straight down and you miss the center
The Earth is flattened: the polar radius is about 21 km shorter than the equatorial one. The plumb line, the direction of a string with a weight, points at the Earth's center only at the equator and the poles. From Warsaw a straight tunnel along the plumb line would pass about 21 km from the center and come out about 41 km farther from the equator than the antipode. The largest miss, about 21 km, is at 45° latitude.
Antipodes on different maps
Orthographic projection (globe): the antipode lies exactly behind the center of the view, so the Earth has to make a half turn.
Mercator projection: the start and the exit are equally far from the equator, so the map enlarges both places by the same amount.
Equal Earth projection: the exit is shifted by 180° of longitude and mirrored across the equator.
Azimuthal equidistant projection: when the map is centered on the start, the antipode becomes the entire outer circle.
Frequently asked questions
Where would I come out if I dug through the Earth from Poland?
In the South Pacific. From Warsaw the tunnel ends at 52.23° S 158.99° W, about 1,540 km from the nearest land (New Zealand). Every place in Poland has ocean on the other side.
Can you dig from the United States to China?
No. From Washington you come out in the Indian Ocean, about 1,190 km from land (Australia). Argentina and Chile lie opposite China, and from Buenos Aires you come out about 130 km from land (China).
How long would it take to fall through the Earth's center?
About 38 minutes (38 min 10 s in the PREM model), in an empty, airless tunnel. At the center your speed would reach about 9.9 km/s.
Is such a tunnel possible?
No. The deepest borehole is 12,262 m deep, and below it the rock keeps getting hotter and the pressure higher. At the Kola borehole's pace, digging would take about 19,700 years.
