45th parallel north

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Highway sign marking the 45th parallel.

The parallel 45° north is an imaginary circle of latitude that is 45 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. The 45th parallel north is often called the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole, but the true halfway point is actually 16.2 kilometers (10.1 miles) north of the 45th parallel because the Earth is oblate, that is, it bulges at the equator and is flattened at the poles.[1]^{[dead link – history]}

1 North America
2 Asia
3 Europe
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] North America

45th parallel sign in Yellowstone National Park.

In North America, the 45th parallel roughly marks the border between the United States and Canada between the St. Lawrence and Connecticut rivers (the northern borders of the U.S. states of New York and Vermont with the Canadian province of Quebec), where the parallel is sometimes called the "Canada line". The actual boundary of Vermont lies approximately 1 km north of the parallel due to a cartographic error. The boundary here intersects Lake Champlain, which is shared by the two nations, with most of the lake lying in the United States.

The 45th parallel makes up most of the boundary between Montana and Wyoming. It also passes through the U.S. states of Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Maine. It also passes through the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

In Michigan, the Old Mission Peninsula in Grand Traverse Bay ends just shy of the 45th parallel. Many guidebooks and signs at the Mission Point Lighthouse describe it as being halfway between the equator and north pole. When the Grand Traverse Bay recedes below normal level, it is possible to walk out to the exact line.

Farther west, the line roughly bisects the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul. In the Western United States, the parallel passes through the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, intersecting the Pacific coast in Oregon. Throughout the United States the parallel is marked in many places on highways by a sign proclaiming that the location is halfway between the North Pole and the equator.

The cities of Ottawa, Montreal and St. Paul are on this parallel.

[edit] Asia

Continuing west, the parallel passes over vast stretches of the North Pacific Ocean before passing through Rishiri-Rebun-Sarobetsu National Park on the northern tip of Hokkaidō, the northernmost of Japan's main islands. It continues through the northern part of the Sea of Japan, entering the Asian mainland on the coast of Primorsky Krai in Russia, north of Vladivostok.

At Khanka Lake it enters northeastern China, passing just south of the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang and continuing through part of Jilin and eastern Inner Mongolia. Transecting southern Mongolia it passes through the provinces of Sükhbaatar, Dornogovi (and its capital Sainshand), Dundgovi, Övörkhangai, Bayankhongor, Govi-Altai, and Khovd. In northwestern China it passes through the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang and its oil city of Karamay.

The parallel passes through southern Kazakhstan, intersecting the city of Burylbaytal at the southern tip of Lake Balkhash and the city of Qyzylorda further west. At the border with Uzbekistan it bisects the Aral Sea and its toxic Vozrozhdeniya Island peninsula, site of an abandoned Soviet bioweapons laboratory. It skirts the northern edge of the Ustyurt Plateau, entering back into Kazakhstan before cutting across the northern tip of the Caspian Sea and into Europe and Russia.

[edit] Europe

In Europe the 45th parallel stretches between the Caspian Sea coast of the Russian Caucasus in the east and Bay of Biscay coast of France in the west. In Russia it runs from the west coast of the Caspian Sea to the east coast of the Black Sea, through the Republic of Kalmykia, Stavropol Krai and its capital Stavropol, and Krasnodar Krai and its capital Krasnodar. In Ukraine is crosses the Crimea and its capital Simferopol.

Further west is passes through the Balkans: Romania (just north of Ploieşti, and through Târgu Jiu), the Yugoslavian autonomous province of Vojvodina, the eastern tip of Croatia, the northern edge of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a section of Adriatic Croatia.

In northern Italy it parallels the Po River, passing just south of Turin before passing into France in the Cottian Alps.

In southern France, it crosses the Rhone River just north of Valence, Drôme and continues across the Massif Central and into the Aquitaine region. The city of Bordeaux is just south of the parallel.