Geography

Antipodes: what's on the other side of the Earth

Every point on Earth has an exact opposite, its antipode. Most people's antipode is somewhere in the ocean, and the old saying about digging to China only works if you start in South America.

By Martin Krpelan · 25 September 2026 · 2 min read

What is an antipode?

The word comes from Greek antípodes, "with feet opposite". Two antipodes stand on opposite sides of the globe, feet pointing at each other. A straight line between them passes through the center of the Earth, and they are as far apart as two places on the surface can be: 20,000 km by any route around the globe, 12,742 km straight through.

Finding yours is simple: switch your latitude from north to south (or south to north) and move your longitude 180 degrees. Bratislava at 48.1° N, 17.1° E becomes 48.1° S, 162.9° W, in the South Pacific.

Mostly ocean

Water covers 71% of the Earth, and land clusters in the Northern Hemisphere, opposite the empty Southern Ocean. As a result only about 15% of the world's land has land at its antipode, less than 5% of the Earth's surface. From most of Europe, North America, Africa and India, you would come out in the sea.

So where does "dig to China" come from?

The phrase is common in the United States and Britain, where China felt like the most distant place imaginable. Geometry disagrees. The antipode of the continental United States is the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia. The only land opposite the mainland US lies in a few patches of Montana and Colorado, which match up with tiny French islands in the Indian Ocean: Kerguelen, Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island.

China's real antipodes are in Argentina and Chile. Start in Buenos Aires and you would surface in the Yellow Sea, just off the Chinese coast north of Shanghai. Start in Rosario or Córdoba and you land in eastern China itself.

Famous antipodal pairs

Try any place yourself on the globe on the home page.