Find Out Why People from All around the World Come to Walk Along This Line

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The City of Quito is known as one of the Latin American countries that has better preserved in a tangible way its Colonial past, but it is also famous for other interesting things, like being the so-called “World’s belly button”:

Dividing the globe into a northern and a southern half by an imaginary line called “Equinoctial line” or “Equator”, the French geodesic expedition that took place in 1736 found out that the center of the planet was located right at the city of Quito, where a Center of the World monument was erected. Nowadays, many people from all around the world enjoy having pictures taken at that monument, with one foot stepping in the northern hemisphere and the other foot stepping on the southern hemisphere of the planet.

The French geodesic mission’s objective was to confirm the shape of the Earth. For this effect, they created the universal metric system that is currently used. With that system, they discovered –to the world’s astonishment– that the planet was round and flattened on the poles. After intense measuring work, the mission also managed to determine that the center of the world was located inside the province of Pichincha, in the Ecuadorian northern mountain range, 13.5km (8.3mi) away from downtown Quito.

That area is now known as the “Center of the World City”, whose main construction is the Center of the World Monument, a 30m (98ft)-tall pyramidal structure that is a tribute to the union of two worlds and to those who contributed so much to what we know about our planet. On its interior is found the Center of the World Ethnographic Museum, built between 1979 and 1982, where the different cultures of the Ecuadorian ethnic groups are shown. The beautiful local handcrafts decorate the surroundings and the whole place is framed by wonderful Andean landscapes.

Nowadays, if you check on the coordinates given by a GPS system, you will realize the French geodesic mission failed to locate the center by a very small difference, marking it on the 0° 00' 08,10" point, only 239.5m (785.7ft) to the south from the 0°00’0,0’’ point. This showed the impressive accuracy of the geodesics of those times, given the fact that they couldn’t use any of the devices that the modern technology has, which actually have the universal metric system they created as their own base.

The Center of the World City is definitely a place worth visiting. It is a place that keeps the secrets of the story of one of the world’s most transcendental events where visitors can experience the nice feeling of walking right at the line that marks the middle of the world.