Null Island is the point on

Earth's surface Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

at zero degrees

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

and zero degrees

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

(), i.e., where the

prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great c ...

and 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 ...

intersect. Null Island is located in

international waters The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regiona ...

in the Atlantic Ocean, roughly 600 km off the coast of West Africa, in the

Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the ...

. The exact point, using the

WGS84 The World Geodetic System (WGS) is a standard used in cartography, geodesy, and satellite navigation including GPS. The current version, WGS 84, defines an Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system and a geodetic datum, and also descr ...

datum, is marked by the Soul buoy (named after the musical genre), a permanently-moored

weather buoy Weather buoys are instruments which collect weather and ocean data within the world's oceans, as well as aid during emergency response to chemical spills, legal proceedings, and engineering design. Moored buoys have been in use since 1951, while ...

. The term "Null Island" jokingly refers to a fictional place at that location, and to a common cartographic placeholder name to which coordinates erroneously set to 0,0 are assigned in placename databases in order to more easily find and fix them. The nearest land () is to the north – a small

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

ian islet offshore from Achowa Point between

Akwidaa Akwidaa is a small town and fishing village in Ahanta West district, a district in the Western Region of south-west Ghana, and is one of the southernmost places in Ghana. Economy The economy is primarily based upon fishing, with many fishing ...

and

Dixcove Dixcove is a coastal village and a fishing community in the Ahanta West district, a district in the Western Region of South Ghana, located approximately 35 km west of the regional capital of Sekondi-Takoradi. The current Paramount Chief of Up ...

. The depth of the seabed beneath the Soul buoy is around . Although Null Island started as a joke within the geospatial community, its existence has both technological and social implications that promote Null Island as a recurring issue in

geographic information science Geographic information science or geographical information science (GIScience or GISc) is the scientific discipline that studies geographic information, including how it represents phenomena in the real world, how it represents the way humans unders ...

In software

In terms of computing and placename databases, the coordinates for Null Island were added to the

Natural Earth Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10 million (1 cm = 100 km), 1:50 million, and 1:110 million map scales. Natural Earth's data set contains integrated vector and raster mapping data. The original authors of the map dat ...

public domain map dataset –2011, after which the term came into wide use (although there is evidence of it being used previously). Since then, the "island" has through fiction been given a geography, history, and flag. Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1 meter square island" with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping". The name "Null" refers to the two zero coordinates, as

null Null may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Null (SQL) (or NULL), a special marker and keyword in SQL indicating that something has no value * Null character, the zero-valued ASCII character, also designated by , often use ...

values (indicating an absence of data) are often coerced to a value of 0 when converted to an integer context or "no-nulls allowed"

context Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...

. The location is used by mapping systems to trap errors. Such errors arise, for example, where an image artifact is erroneously associated to the location by software which cannot attribute a geoposition, and instead associates a latitude and longitude of "Null,Null" or "0,0". As reported in January 2018 by

Bellingcat Bellingcat (stylised as bellngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 ...

, other data mapped to the location include activity events from the

Strava Strava is an American internet service for tracking physical exercise which incorporates social network features. It is mostly used for cycling and running using Global Positioning System data. Strava uses a freemium model with some features on ...

fitness-tracking app, apparently mapped to the location due to users entering "0,0" coordinates to disguise their real locations.

Soul buoy

A weather and sea observation buoy is moored at the Null Island location. The buoy ("Station 13010 – Soul") is part of the

PIRATA Pirata may refer to: * ''Pirata'' (album), a 1989 album by Litfiba * Pirata (footballer) (born 1987), a Portuguese footballer * ''Pirata'' (graphic novel), a graphic novel by Pol Medina, Jr * ''Pirata'' (spider), a genus of wolf spiders * ''Il p ...

system, a set of 17 buoys installed in the tropical Atlantic Ocean since 1997 by the United States, France, and Brazil. Like the other buoys in the system, it is named after a musical genre. It is an ATLAS (''Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System'') buoy, autonomous, conical-shaped and 3.8 m high. It is anchored by a cable to the seabed. It measures the following: * Wind speed and direction * Air temperature * Precipitation * Humidity * Solar radiation * Pressure, temperature and conductivity up to 500 m below the surface. The buoy disappeared less than a year after its installation, and was replaced in 1998.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline Extreme points of Earth Fictional islands Internet memes Gulf of Guinea

In software

Soul buoy

See also

References

External links