Equator — World Map, Countries It Crosses, and Geographic Facts

The Equator is the imaginary line at 0° latitude that divides Earth into Northern and Southern hemispheres. At 40,075 km long, it passes through the territory of 13 countries on four continents and three oceans. Click any country on the map or the table below to see exact entry/exit longitudes and the kilometres traversed.

What is the Equator? Definition and Geographic Facts

The Equator is the imaginary line of latitude that runs around the middle of the Earth at exactly 0° latitude, dividing the planet into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. By definition, the Equator is the great circle on Earth's surface where the plane perpendicular to the planet's rotation axis passes through the centre of mass. It is the reference line from which all other latitudes are measured — every point on the Equator is exactly 90° of arc from each pole, and the Equator is the only parallel of latitude that is also a great circle. All other parallels (the Tropics, the Polar Circles) form progressively smaller "small circles" as you move toward the poles.

Equator definition (short): the line of zero latitude where Earth's rotation axis is perpendicular to the surface, separating the two hemispheres. Equator latitude: 0° (by definition — the reference for all other latitudes). Equator length: 40,075 km / 24,901 mi — the longest line of latitude on Earth.

Where is the equator on a map? On any standard world map, the Equator is the horizontal line through the geographic centre of the Earth — running west-to-east from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, across central Africa (Gabon, the Congos, East Africa), the Indian Ocean, the Indonesian archipelago, the Pacific Ocean, and the Andes (Ecuador) and Amazon (Colombia, Brazil) before completing its 40,075-kilometre loop back to the Atlantic. The interactive map at the top of this page highlights the Equator in red, with all 13 countries the line passes through highlighted in translucent fills.

Astronomically, the Equator is the line where the sun appears directly overhead at solar noon on the two equinoxes — around 20-21 March and 22-23 September. Geographically, it is the dividing line between the Northern Hemisphere (home to about 87% of Earth's human population) and the Southern Hemisphere. Climatologically, the Equator is the centre of the tropical rainforest belt and the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), the rising-air band that drives equatorial rainfall and tropical cyclones. The Equator is also the basis of Earth's equatorial bulge: rotation-driven centrifugal force makes the planet about 21 km wider at the Equator than at the poles, giving Earth its oblate-spheroid shape rather than a perfect sphere.

How to use this Equator map

1. Open the world map. The red horizontal line is the Equator at 0° latitude — 40,075 km long, the longest line of latitude on Earth. The 13 countries the Equator passes through are highlighted with a translucent red fill.
2. Click any country to see entry/exit longitudes and length traversed. Click a highlighted country on the map (or any row in the table below) to open a popup showing the exact longitudes where the Equator enters and exits the country, plus the kilometres of land traversed. Multi-archipelago countries (Indonesia, Kiribati) show each crossing segment separately.
3. Sort the countries table by length, name, or population. The reference table below the map lists all 13 countries with capital, population, climate type, and length the Equator traverses. Click any column header to sort — useful for finding the longest equatorial stretch (Brazil) or the smallest country (São Tomé and Príncipe).
4. Read the geography, climate, and astronomy notes. Below the table: bodies of water crossed (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific) and a fact panel with the science behind why the Equator matters for solar energy, climate, day length, and geodesy.

The 13 countries the Equator passes through

From west to east, here is what the Equator passes through in each country, with the landmarks, towns, rivers, and ecological zones along the line. Eleven of the thirteen are crossed on land; Maldives and Kiribati are crossed across territorial waters between islands.

Climate at the Equator

The equatorial climate is defined by intense, year-round solar input — about half of all solar energy reaching Earth's surface arrives within 30° of the Equator. The result is a narrow band of consistently high temperatures (24–28 °C is typical for the lowlands) and low atmospheric pressure where moist air rises and cools. As that air rises, water vapour condenses, releasing huge amounts of rainfall. The result is the equatorial rainforest belt: the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the islands of Indonesia, all sitting roughly on the Equator and all experiencing some of the highest rainfall on Earth (1,500–4,000 mm per year is normal).

Seasonal variation at the Equator is minimal in temperate terms — there is no winter or summer — but most equatorial regions do have wet and dry seasons driven by the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ shifts north in the Northern Hemisphere summer and south in the Southern Hemisphere summer, creating bimodal rainy seasons in many equatorial countries. Day length stays within a few minutes of 12 hours every day of the year — the only place on Earth where this is true.

Three equators: geographic, astronomical, magnetic

There is more than one "equator" in Earth science. The geographic equator is the geometric line at 0° latitude — the one drawn on this page. The astronomical equator (or celestial equator) is the projection of the geographic Equator onto the celestial sphere; this is what astronomers use to measure declination of stars. The two are nearly identical — they differ only by tiny adjustments for the precession of Earth's axis.

The magnetic equator is different. It is the line where Earth's magnetic field is exactly horizontal — neither pointing up nor down. Because Earth's magnetic field is tilted about 11° from the rotation axis and is asymmetric, the magnetic equator wanders south of the geographic Equator across South America and dips north across Africa. Pilots, ship navigators, and geophysicists working with compasses use the magnetic equator rather than the geographic one when correcting for declination at low latitudes.

Where to stand on the Equator: monuments and visitor sites

Multiple countries have built monuments where the Equator crosses their territory. The best-known is the Mitad del Mundo ("Middle of the World") complex outside Quito, Ecuador, which has been a tourist destination since the 1930s. Modern GPS surveys place the true Equator about 240 metres north of the historical monument; the nearby Inti Ñan museum advertises itself as the "real" line. In Uganda, the Kayabwe equator markers on the Kampala–Masaka highway draw thousands of road-trip visitors per year. In Indonesia, Pontianak in West Kalimantan hosts an equator monument where annual zero-shadow ceremonies take place at both equinoxes. Macapá in Brazil features the Marco Zero monument and a football stadium where the centre line is the Equator. In Kenya, the town of Nanyuki near Mount Kenya is a popular tourist stop.

Related tools and resources

For the other major lines of latitude and longitude, see our companion tools: Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, Prime Meridian, and the International Date Line. To compare the relative sizes of the equatorial countries side-by-side, our country size comparison tool includes all twelve.

For point-of-interest queries near the Equator, the latitude longitude finder will tell you the exact coordinates of any clicked point and how far it is from the Equator. To explore tropical timezones, see the time zone finder; for measuring the great-circle distance from an equatorial city to anywhere else, use distance between two places.

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