Horse latitudes

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This article refers to the geographical area. See also Horse latitudes (disambiguation)

A diagram showing the relative positions of the Horse lattitudes

Horse latitudes or Subtropical High are subtropical latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south, characterized by light winds and hot, dry weather, caused by descending air. The belt in the Northern Hemisphere is sometimes called the “calms of Cancer” and in the Southern Hemisphere it is called the “calms of Capricorn”. The phrase's etymology is uncertain. The ancient Persian navigator and general Sataspes whose very name derived from his command of a Persian horse cavalry unit (sat was the unit size and asp(es) was the Persian word for horse) has been credited by some historians as the founder of the term. Sataspes was the leading explorer and navigator of this day, circumnavigating Africa as well as mapping out the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Verde. Those navigating ancient waters probably referred to those latitudes as the ones Sataspes mapped out, and in ancient times the term was interchangeable for "horse". The term also has probably survived from ships traveling to the New World that were often stranded in this region and forced to slaughter or jettison onboard horses in order to lighten the load, preserve precious water supplies, or for their meat and blood, but this may be apocryphal.

The warm, dry conditions of the horse latitudes also relate to the existence of temperate deserts, such as the Sahara Desert in Africa, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, and parts of the Middle East in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Chilean-Argentinian-Peruvian desert, the Kalahari Desert, and the Australian Desert in the Southern Hemisphere.