The Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere[1] or western hemisphere,[2] is a geographical Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.). Four historical traditions in geographical research are the spatial analysis of natural and term for the half of the Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7] that lies west West is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography of the Prime Meridian The Prime Meridian and its opposite the 180th meridian , which the International Date Line generally follows, form a great circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres (which crosses Greenwich Greenwich (pronounced /ˈɡrɛnɪtʃ/ gren-itch, /ˈɡrɛnɪdʒ/ gren-idge, or /ˈɡrɪnɪdʒ/ grin-idge) is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich in London London is a leading global city being the world's largest financial centre alongside New York City, and has the largest city GDP in Europe. Central London is home to the headquarters of most of the UK's top 100 listed companies and more than 100 of Europe's 500 largest. London's influence in politics, finance, education, entertainment, media,, England The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant, United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land), the other half being the eastern hemisphere The Eastern Hemisphere, also Eastern hemisphere or eastern hemisphere, is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that is east of the Prime Meridian and west of 180° longitude. It is also used to refer to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australasia, vis-à-vis the Western Hemisphere, which includes the Americas. In addition, it may be used in a.[3] It is also used to specifically refer to the Americas The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total (or the New World The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas. When the term originated in the late 15th century, the Americas were new to the Europeans[note], who previously thought of the world as consisting only of Europe, Asia, and Africa . The term "New World" should not be confused with "modern) and adjacent waters, while excluding other territories that lie geographically in the hemisphere (parts of Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population, Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the, Antarctica Antarctica (pronounced /ænˈtɑrktɪkə/ ) is Earth's southernmost continent, underlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after, and Asia Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. During the 20th century Asia's population nearly quadrupled); thus, it is sometimes referred to as the American hemisphere.[4]

Any definition of eastern and western hemispheres, however, requires the selection of an arbitrary meridian A meridian is an imaginary arc on the Earth's surface from the North Pole to the South Pole that connects all locations running along it with a given longitude. The position of a point on the meridian is given by the latitude. Each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude at the intersection points. Each is also the same size, being and a corresponding meridian on the other side of the Earth. The Prime Meridian at 0° longitude Longitude , identified by the Greek letter lambda (λ), is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement. Constant longitude is represented by lines running from north to south. The line of longitude (meridian) that passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in England, is typically used, which runs through Greenwich; this is used to define the International Date Line The International Date Line is an imaginary line on the surface of the Earth opposite the Prime Meridian where the date changes as one travels east or west across it. Roughly along 180° longitude, with diversions to pass around some territories and island groups, it mostly corresponds to the time zone boundary separating −12 and +12 hours (or End Meridian The 180th meridian or antimeridian is the meridian which is 180° east or west of the Prime Meridian passing through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It is common to both east longitude and west longitude. It is used as the basis for the International Date Line because it for the most part passes through the open waters of the Pacific Ocean) on the other side of the Earth at 180° longitude The 180th meridian or antimeridian is the meridian which is 180° east or west of the Prime Meridian passing through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It is common to both east longitude and west longitude. It is used as the basis for the International Date Line because it for the most part passes through the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. In its proper geographic sense, the western hemisphere includes not only the Americas, but the western portions of Europe and Africa, the easternmost tip of Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal, numerous territories in Oceania Oceania is a geographical, and often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Dumont d'Urville.[dubious – discuss] The term is also sometimes used to denote a continent comprising Australia Continent and proximate, and a portion of Antarctica while excluding some of the Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km²) and extending about 1,200 mi (1,931 km) westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Crossing longitude 180°, they are the westernmost part of to the southwest of the Alaskan Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million at about two cents per acre . The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959 mainland. Sometimes, the meridians of 20° W The meridian 20° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole and the diametrically opposed 160° E The meridian 160° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole are used,[4][5] which excludes the European and African mainlands but also excludes a small portion of northeast Greenland b. ^ Greenland, the Faeroes and Iceland were formally Norwegian possessions until 1814 despite 400 years of Danish monarchy beforehand and includes more of eastern Russia and Oceania (e.g., New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori language name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud. The Realm of New Zealand also).

The two major regions of Antarctica Antarctica (pronounced /ænˈtɑrktɪkə/ ) is Earth's southernmost continent, underlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after are named after their positions mainly within a single hemisphere; West Antarctica West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica is one of the two major regions of Antarctica, lying on the Pacific Ocean side of the Transantarctic Mountains and comprising Marie Byrd Land, Ellsworth Land, and the Antarctic Peninsula. All of West Antarctica lies within the Western Hemisphere. It is separated from the main land mass of the continent by the is named for the Western Hemisphere.

Countries common to both hemispheres

Below is a list of the countries which are in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres on the Prime Meridian The Prime Meridian and its opposite the 180th meridian , which the International Date Line generally follows, form a great circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, in order from north to south:

Below is a list of the countries which are in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres along the 180th meridian The 180th meridian or antimeridian is the meridian which is 180° east or west of the Prime Meridian passing through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It is common to both east longitude and west longitude. It is used as the basis for the International Date Line because it for the most part passes through the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, in order from north to south:

Countries in the Western Hemisphere but not in the Americas

The following countries lie outside the Americas (or New World) yet are in part or entirely within the Western Hemisphere.

Sources

  1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd ed., rev. 2006. London, UK: Oxford University Press, p. 2001.
  2. ^ Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary (based on Collegiate vol., 11th ed.) 2006. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc.
  3. ^ "Latitude and longitude" Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  4. ^ a b Olson, Judy M. "Projecting the hemisphere", ch. 4 from Matching the map projection to the need; Robinson, Arthur H. & Snyder, John P., eds. 1997. Bethesda, MD: Cartography and Geographic Information Society, American Congress on Surveying and Mapping.
  5. ^ "Western Hemisphere". Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2001. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., p. 1294.
Hemispheres of the Earth
Northern hemisphere • Southern hemisphere • Eastern hemisphere • Western hemisphere • Land hemisphere • Water hemisphere

Coordinates: 0°N 90°W / 0°N 90°W

Categories: Hemispheres

 

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In his own words, it was to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the . western hemisphere. and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary. Those means included violent retaliation ...

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Why didn't the US conquer the entire Western Hemisphere and make the territories states?
Q. All people in the conquered territories would immediately be granted citizenship by the US government after the conquering of the territory ended. The US could have exported the ideas of capitalism, democracy, equality among all people and the idea that everyone should have a chance to make a good life for themselves through conquering territories in the Western Hemisphere and making them states with US democratic administrations. Peace to all people in the Western Hemisphere, and a humongous United States of America may have been better then today's world.
Asked by interdependent globalized world - Sun Oct 26 05:30:51 2008 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. Hopefully because we learned the lessons of the British, Spanish and French empires.
Answered by Ortho Cross - Mon Oct 27 23:08:22 2008

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