Weather buoy — Null Island

Yesterday, we posted about a ship which allegedly crossed the International Date Line and the equator at exactly the right time. Today, we will look at the other side of the globe, where the Prime Meridian crosses the equator, to the crowded, yet wholly fictional, or perhaps more accurately, entirely virtual, Null Island, at latitude and longitude 0,0.  An updated repost from several years ago.

Several years ago, a website for the Republic of Null Island appeared on the internet. It read, in part “Welcome to Null Island! The Republic of Null Island is one of the smallest and least-visited nations on Earth. Situated where the Prime Meridian crosses the Equator, Null Island sits 1600 kilometres off the western coast of Africa.” The website goes on to describe the geography, the people and the history of this “least-visited nation.” Sadly, the website and apparently also the republic have now vanished.

In fact, Null Island, at a latitude and longitude of 0,0, does not exist. Or does it? It seems that thousands of addresses appearing on the Internet show up as having the longitude and latitude of 0,0. Given all the houses, restaurants and office buildings which share the same 0,0 latitude and longitude, Null Island must be a very crowded place indeed.

So, what is going on? It is all about geocoding. Geocoding is the process by which you can take a street address and turn it into a coordinate on the face of the globe expressed in terms of longitude and latitude. The problem arises if you input an address that the software you are using cannot locate or if you input the latitude and longitude in a format that it does not recognize. In many cases, the default return is the coordinate 0,0.

Null Island is an in-joke created by Nate Kelso and Tom Patterson as part of the Natural Earth data set in January 2011. And while it may be a joke, it is a popular location. The Mostly Maps blog has an example of a 3 bedroom property near Enfield in North East London whose coordinates land on Null Island. They comment: “This is in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, which as far as I know hasn’t suffered massive continental drift to end up in the middle of the ocean.

Zoom the map out and you can see why this unique property seems to be alone in the middle of the ocean; it’s really on Null Island. Either that or someone hasn’t been checking their geocoding results properly. A bad geocoding result is almost probably definitely the reason for this little geographic faux pas, but a part of me likes to think that Null Island really does exist and you really can spend close to a million pounds securing a 3 bedroom apartment on one of geography’s most tongue in cheek places.”

Notwithstanding all the structures which have been given the virtual location of 0,0, there is one physical manifestation of Null Island, a weather buoy anchored in over 16,000 ft of water over position 0,0.