98th meridian west

The meridian 98° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.

Line across the Earth
98°
98th meridian west

The 98th meridian west forms a great circle with the 82nd meridian east.

From Pole to Pole

Starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the 98th meridian west passes through:

Co-ordinates Country, territory or sea Notes
90°0′N 98°0′W Arctic Ocean Passing just west of the Fay Islands, Nunavut,  Canada (at 79°35′N 97°40′W)
78°49′N 98°0′W  Canada Nunavut — Amund Ringnes Island
78°17′N 98°0′W Hassel Sound
77°50′N 98°0′W Unnamed waterbody
76°34′N 98°0′W  Canada Nunavut — Loney Island and Bathurst Island
75°1′N 98°0′W Parry Channel Passing just east of Garrett Island, Nunavut,  Canada (at 74°45′N 98°8′W)
Passing just west of Lowther Island, Nunavut,  Canada (at 74°29′N 97°47′W)
74°7′N 98°0′W  Canada Nunavut — Russell Island and Prince of Wales Island
71°40′N 98°0′W Larsen Sound
69°54′N 98°0′W  Canada Nunavut — King William Island
68°42′N 98°0′W Simpson Strait
68°32′N 98°0′W  Canada Nunavut
Manitoba — from 60°0′N 98°0′W, passing through Lake Winnipeg
49°0′N 98°0′W  United States North Dakota
South Dakota — from 45°56′N 98°0′W
Nebraska — from 42°46′N 98°0′W
Kansas — from 40°0′N 98°0′W
Oklahoma — from 37°0′N 98°0′W
Texas — from 34°0′N 98°0′W, passing through the West Pole in Bee Cave, Texas
26°3′N 98°0′W  Mexico Tamaulipas
Veracruz — from 22°21′N 98°0′W
Hidalgo — from 20°36′N 98°0′W
Puebla — from 20°28′N 98°0′W
Tlaxcala — from 19°38′N 98°0′W
Puebla — from 19°13′N 98°0′W
Oaxaca — from 17°59′N 98°0′W
16°7′N 98°0′W Pacific Ocean
60°0′S 98°0′W Southern Ocean
71°48′S 98°0′W Antarctica Unclaimed territory

United States

In his classic study of the Great Plains, Walter Prescott Webb described the 98th meridian as the dividing line between the arid western United States and the humid eastern United States:[1][2]

As one contrasts the civilization of the Great Plains with that of the eastern timberland, one sees what may be called an institutional fault (comparable to a geological fault) running from middle Texas to Illinois or Dakota, roughly following the ninety-eighth meridian. At this fault the ways of life and of living changed. Practically every institution that was carried across it was either broken and remade or else greatly altered.

More commonly, the 100th meridian is cited as the approximate dividing line, following the earlier observations of John Wesley Powell in the late 1800s.[1]

See also

References
  1. Seager, Richard; Lis, Nathan; Feldman, Jamie; Ting, Mingfang; Williams, A. Park; Nakamura, Jennifer; Liu, Haibo; Henderson, Naomi (1 March 2018). "Whither the 100th Meridian? The Once and Future Physical and Human Geography of America's Arid–Humid Divide. Part I: The Story So Far". Earth Interactions. 22 (5): 1–22. doi:10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1.
  2. Webb, Walter Prescott (1931). The Great Plains. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 8–9.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.