French Geodesic Mission To Lapland on:
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The French Geodesic Mission to Lapland was one of the two 
French Geodesic Mission
The French Geodesic Mission to the Equator (french: Expédition géodésique française en Équateur, also called the French Geodesic Mission to Peru and the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission) was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador c ...
carried out in 1736–1737 by the French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
for measuring the shape of the Earth.
One expedition was sent to Ecuador to perform measurements near the Equator
The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...
, another one was sent to Meänmaa
(), or sometimes Torne Valley or Torne River Valley ( fi, Tornionlaakso; sv, Tornedalen) lies at the border of Sweden and Finland. It is named after the Torne River flowing through the valley and into the Gulf of Bothnia. Geographically the t ...
to perform measurements near the Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle.
The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at w ...
.
The expedition to Meänmaa was led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; ; 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the ...
. As Swedish representative, professor Anders Celsius
Anders Celsius (; 27 November 170125 April 1744) was a Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744, but traveled from 1732 to 1735 visiting notable observatories in Germ ...
joined the team. The expedition arrived in Tornio on June 19, 1736, and headed back to France on June 10, 1737. They measured a meridian arc of approximately one degree
Degree may refer to:
As a unit of measurement
* Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement
** Degree of geographical latitude
** Degree of geographical longitude
* Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics
...
's length – about 111 km. The south end of the arc was at the tower of the church of Tornio, the north end was at the hill of Kittisvaara. By measuring the length of the arc, Maupertuis's team was able to prove that the Earth is, indeed, flattened at the poles as Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
had predicted.
The books describing this trip, written by Maupertuis and Réginald Outhier, have given us much information about the nature and culture of 18th-century Lapland, and the books have inspired many travellers to head to Meänmaa.
References
Geodetic surveys History of Earth science Arctic expeditions Expeditions from France {{geodesy-stub