Where does the Greenwich meridian pass?

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The time zone is one of the most important inventions that human beings have reached over time. This element was created to establish a series of hours by which to communicate with the rest of the planet and thus be able to carry out commercial agreements among other series of activities. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about where the meridian of Greenwich passes which is the main point from where the hours start to be counted and therefore where they end.

Before we start talking about where the Greenwich meridian passes, we have to know exactly what it is. We can also find it with the name of "Meridian 0" since it is the first and from this the lengths begin to be measured to locate the rest of the time bands.

Therefore, we must know that it's totally fictional, there are no meridians, only in our mental group, because we have reached an agreement so that in that way people can relate, based on the hours.

The Greenwich meridian takes its name from an English town from where it begins, and the exact point within this is the astronomical observatory that it has.

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The meridian begins its journey at the North Pole from where it goes down the Greenland Sea, Norway and the North Sea, until it reaches England, passing through the Royal Greenwich Observatory (coordinates 53º45'N0º0'E) from there it continues its descent until it reaches France through the English Channel and then reaches Spain.

Here we will find a somewhat ambiguous example, because as we know, Spain plays with two time zones, positions since the Civil War to adapt to the European Central Time, but which, to a certain extent, helps to use more hours of sunshine throughout the year. Well, the meridian passes through Huesca, specifically in Monte Perdido and from there it will go through the Zaragoza highway. In its course, it will continue the journey through the Gulf of Valencia, Denia and Altea and from there begins its journey through the Mediterranean Sea.

Next, it enters Africa, the countries through which it passes are: Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana. And after that, it will reach Antarctica through the Atlantic Ocean.

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In 1884 a group of 25 delegates from various countries met in Washington to reach a series of agreements. Within these agreements it was determined that it should be adopted a single meridian for the whole world, Well, until then, practically every country was ruled by one (something that made international relations quite painful in many cases).

Being the meeting established by members of the Commonwealth the meridian was located in the town of Greenwich, exactly at the royal observatory. In this way, many countries saw how they had to live one day behind or ahead of the rest of the world, even in certain cases being neighboring countries.

For this reason, there were a series of readjustments advancing or delaying the hours to stay in the same time slot.

It is curious to observe how the Iron line was, the one used by some European countries such as France itself, that name is due to the Isla del Hierro (Canary Islands) which served to control the passage of time both in the overseas territories of Spain in America and in the rest of the world.

Thus, England used its own, just as the US and other European countries used others, making the hours quite different. What is certain is that the difference between the Greenwich and El Hierro lines was not very different, as it was only an hour apart.

Within the lesson we have to stop to define in a concise way what the time zones are. These are the famous time zones, a division of 24 imaginary lines into which the Earth was divided.

These serve to determine the beginning of the days, in addition to the passing of the hours, that is to say a mere normalization for the whole world because in that way international relations are much better.