A final British bastion may fall from the map

Press, 12 August 1989, Page 23

A final British bastion may fall from the map

Britain’s last symbol of imperial greatness may soon be wiped off the map. A leading cartographer wants to move the Greenwich meridian to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, writes Andi Spicer in the “Observer.” Professor Arno Peters has visited London to lobby experts, including the Royal Geographical Society, to move longitude zero to the international date line. This would remove the centre

of the world — mapwise at least — away from Europe to a line that runs down the Bering Strait and the Pacific. And as it would not run through any land mass, the line would not appear to belong to any country — a crucial “anti-imperialist” symbol, says Professor Peters. Before 1884, every country had its own zero meridian. Then the Greenwich was selected as the world standard in recognition of Britain’s imperial might. “But the world has

moved on,” adds Professor Peters. In fact, Professor Peters also wants to move the international date line, taking it straight down the Bering Strait along longitude 169 degrees, cutting out current zig-zags. The Professor has even found a neW resting place for the meridian stone — Diomeda — a small island between the Soviet Union and Alaska. Both the date ling and the meridian should run through it, he says. The R.G.S. is cautious, but admits the idea is

“not impossible.” > Not that this is Professor Peters’ first assault on our image of the world. His new atlas, “ThePetersProjectlon,”has Africa and Latin America much larger than normal and Europe and North , America much smaller, a more “equitable” map now adopted by UNESCO and the Catholic Church. The projection has fewer distortions and avoids current over-em-phases of countries nearer the poles at the expense of those near the Equator.