Straddling the Yellow Line Indicating the Equator

When I was in grade school, I couldn’t tell the difference between Ecuador the Country and the Equator (Latitude 0). In November 2016, my brother and I traveled to both the country and the zero latitude. Just north of Quito is a park called Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, or “Middle of the Worlkd City.” Dan and I took in the exhibits and spent the night at a nearby hotel perched atop a crater that hung over a heavy fog prior to driving to the cloud forest town of Mindo.

Actually, the equator as currently defined is 790 feet (240 meters) north of the yellow line. Like many similar geographic markers, it tends to move around. Take, for instance, the Tropic of Cancer. According to Wikipedia:

The Tropic of Cancer’s position is not fixed, but constantly changes because of a slight wobble in the Earth’s longitudinal alignment relative to the ecliptic, the plane in which the Earth orbits around the Sun. Earth’s axial tilt varies over a 41,000-year period from about 22.1 to 24.5 degrees, and as of 2000 is about 23.4 degrees, which will continue to remain valid for about a millennium. This wobble means that the Tropic of Cancer is currently drifting southward at a rate of almost half an arcsecond (0.468″) of latitude, or 15 m (49 ft), per year. The circle’s position was at exactly 23° 27′N in 1917 and will be at 23° 26’N in 2045. The distance between the Antarctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer is essentially constant as they move in tandem. This is based on an assumption of a constant equator, but the precise location of the equator is not truly fixed.

How Far Do We Have to Move This Thing?

You know, I can actually feel that wobble sometimes. But then, if you’re going to sink millions of dollars into a park, you can’t always be re-drawing the line.