Talk:Four Corners (Canada)

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[edit] Not a Four Corners?

Are you sure that Canada has a "Four Corners"? Have a look at that "spot" with mapquest.com. You can zoom right in on it. See what I mean?

No, I'm not sure what you mean. I looked at Mapquest and it doesnt' show any gap; there appears to be a four corners spot.

http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?go=1&do=nw&rmm=1&un=m&cl=EN&ct=NA&rsres=1&1ffi=&1l=&1g=&1pl=&1v=&1n=&2ffi=&2l=&2g=&2pl=&2v=&2n=&1pn=&1a=&1c=Miami&1s=FL&1z=&2pn=&2a=&2c=Flin+FLon&2s=MB&2z=&r=f (Please pardon the strange title of (driving directions from Miami to Flin Flon). I wanted a zoomed out map and don't know of any towns in the area.) By definition, the corner is at the intersection of 60°00′00″ North and 102°00′00″ West. It doesn't even make sense that such an offset would exist. The area is remote, so there are no towns to consider when creating the borders. The area is not of strategic imporantance either, so there's no reason why one territory or province would be "given" a little bit of extra land. I'm deleting this erroneous "did you know" from the article unless someone has a source. Ufwuct 19:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I just linked the coordinates. Of the 2 maps available from the coordinates that show the boundries, Mapquest shows no offset but Google maps do when you click on hybrid. However the external link to the Government of Canada's map shows no offset. You need to zoom in to see it. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 19:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

MSN Maps also shows this as an exact four-corners[1]. But as CambridgeBayWeather noted, Google Maps dows show an offset [2]. It would be interesting to find out what source material Google Maps used. Most likely, there are arguments on both sides as to whether there actually ought to be an offset or not. The reason has to do with differing geodetic systems. The current Manitoba-Saskatchewan boundary was set by the Manitoba Boundaries Extension Act (1881) [3] and the Saskatchewan Act (1905) [4], in terms of "road allowances" and so forth. That boundary really could not be exactly the same as what a GPS unit would today identify as 102° W longitude, because GPS uses the WGS84 geodetic system, which is standard today but had not yet been developed in 1881 or 1905. The obelisk referred to in the article is apparently at 59º59'59.6"N 102º00'22.3"W under the NAD27 reference [5], which converts to 60º00'00"N 102º00'25"W under WGS84 [6]. In other words it is about 25 seconds of longitude west of the 102nd meridian under the WGS84 datum, a distance of approximately 387 metres [7]. The Nunavut Act (1993) defined the western boundary of Nunavut as commencing at precisely 60°00'N 102°00'W (presumably according to WGS84 although that doesn't seem to be specified expressly). However, it goes on to describe that point as "being the intersection of the Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan borders" [8]. --Mathew5000 22:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Nunavut ?

Could this not be merged with Nunavut? There is not very much new information in this stub that wasn't already in the main Nunavut article that linked to this entry. Dunro 17:25, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

[edit] category

Does Wikipedia have a category for tripoints and quadripoints? Or even a list of them? Tripoint does not even seem to be a real article. --Mathew5000 02:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)