Tropic of Cancer — World Map, Countries It Crosses, and Geographic Facts

The Tropic of Cancer is the parallel of latitude at 23°26′N — the northernmost point on Earth where the sun can pass directly overhead. At 36,788 km long, it crosses 17 countries on three continents. Click any country on the map or table below for entry/exit longitudes and length traversed.

Latitude

23.4394°

Total length

36,788 km

Land traversed

…

Type

Parallel of latitude

Computing intersections…

#	Country	Length crossed	Capital	Population	Climate
1	MexicoCrosses Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas	…	Mexico City	130.0M	Arid to semi-arid (BWh / BSh)
2	BahamasPasses through the Exuma Cays	…	Nassau	412K	Tropical maritime (Aw)
3	Western Sahara	…	El Aaiún (claimed)	600K	Hot desert (BWh)
4	Mauritania	…	Nouakchott	4.6M	Hot desert (BWh)
5	Mali	…	Bamako	21.0M	Hot desert / Sahel (BWh, BSh)
6	Algeria	…	Algiers	45.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
7	Niger	…	Niamey	25.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
8	Libya	…	Tripoli	7.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
9	EgyptPasses near Aswan and the Lake Nasser dam	…	Cairo	105.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
10	Saudi ArabiaPasses near Riyadh	…	Riyadh	36.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
11	United Arab EmiratesJust clips the southern UAE	…	Abu Dhabi	10.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
12	Oman	…	Muscat	5.0M	Hot desert (BWh)
13	IndiaCrosses Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, Mizoram	…	New Delhi	1.42B	Tropical / arid varied
14	Bangladesh	…	Dhaka	170.0M	Tropical monsoon (Am)
15	Myanmar	…	Naypyidaw	54.0M	Tropical monsoon (Am)
16	ChinaPasses through Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian	…	Beijing	1.41B	Subtropical / monsoon
17	TaiwanCrosses Chiayi County and Hualien County	…	Taipei	24.0M	Subtropical monsoon (Cwa)

Bodies of water crossed

Atlantic OceanPacific Ocean

Quick facts

Named for the constellation Cancer the Crab — at the moment of the June solstice, the sun was historically located in Cancer.
Today the June solstice sun appears in Taurus, due to ~2,000 years of axial precession; the line keeps the historical name.
On the June solstice (around 21 June), the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer at solar noon — this is the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.
The Sahara Desert sits squarely on the Tropic of Cancer — the line’s descending dry air drives the world’s largest hot desert.
Every country the Tropic of Cancer passes through experiences at least one day per year when shadows shrink to zero at noon.
The Tropic of Cancer’s exact latitude shifts slightly over time — Earth’s axial tilt oscillates between about 22.1° and 24.5° on a 41,000-year cycle.

What is the Tropic of Cancer? Definition and Geographic Facts

The Tropic of Cancer is one of the five major parallels of latitude that mark significant astronomical and climatic boundaries on Earth. By definition, it is the northernmost latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at solar noon — an event that happens once a year, on the June solstice. North of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun is never directly overhead; south of it, the sun reaches zenith at least twice a year (once on the way north, once on the way south).

Tropic of Cancer definition (short): the parallel of latitude at 23°26′N marking the northern boundary of the tropics. Tropic of Cancer latitude: 23.4394° (decimal degrees), set by Earth's axial tilt of about 23.4°. Tropic of Cancer length: 36,788 km (22,859 mi) — about 92% the length of the Equator.

Where is the Tropic of Cancer on a world map? On any standard world map, the Tropic of Cancer is the horizontal line about a third of the way down from the top of the visible world. It runs west-to-east across the Pacific (off Mexico), through Mexico, the Bahamas and the Atlantic, then through the Sahara (Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Egypt), across the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman), through India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, and Taiwan, before completing its 36,788 km loop in the Pacific Ocean.

Astronomically, the Tropic of Cancer is the line where the sun reaches its highest possible altitude — directly overhead — at the moment of the June solstice (around 21 June). On that day, vertical objects on the line cast no shadow at solar noon, a phenomenon called “zero shadow day.” Climatologically, the Tropic sits in the descending branch of the Hadley cell, where air sinks and warms — producing the planet's largest belt of hot deserts: the Sahara, the Arabian Desert, and the Thar.

How to use this Tropic of Cancer map

Open the world map. The orange horizontal line is the Tropic of Cancer at 23°26′N (23.4394° latitude) — 36,788 km long. The 17 countries the Tropic of Cancer passes through are highlighted with a translucent fill in the same color.
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 Tropic of Cancer enters and exits that country, plus the kilometres of land traversed. India and China are the longest stretches — over 2,500 km each.
Sort the countries table by length, name, or population. The reference table below the map lists all 17 countries with capital, population, climate type, and length the Tropic of Cancer traverses. Click any column header to sort — useful for finding the longest tropic stretch (India) or the smallest country (Bahamas).
Read the climate, astronomy, and history notes. Below the table: bodies of water crossed (Atlantic, Pacific) and a fact panel covering the June solstice, why the line is named after Cancer, and how Earth's axial tilt makes the Tropic the northern boundary of the tropics.

The 17 countries the Tropic of Cancer passes through

From west to east, here is what the Tropic of Cancer passes through in each country, with the landmarks, towns, deserts, and ecological zones along the line.

Mexico

The Tropic of Cancer enters Mexico on the Pacific coast in Sinaloa and exits on the Gulf of Mexico in Tamaulipas, crossing five states on the way: Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. The line marks roughly the southern boundary of the Mexican high plateau and the transition between the temperate north and the tropical south. Mexico is the only mainland North American country the Tropic of Cancer crosses.

Bahamas

The Tropic of Cancer crosses the Bahamas through the Exuma Cays, between Long Island and the Great Bahama Bank. The line runs through a chain of small uninhabited islets — at standard zoom levels the Bahamian polygon at this resolution shows the Tropic passing along its southern edge.

Western Sahara

The Tropic of Cancer crosses the disputed territory of Western Sahara in its central Sahara desert region. The line passes through the territory at roughly 13°W, in an area dominated by hammada (rocky desert plateaus) and erg (sand seas). Western Sahara is the smallest jurisdiction on the line by population.

Mauritania

The Tropic of Cancer enters Mauritania in the eastern Sahara and runs west through Adrar Region. The line crosses dramatic desert landscapes including the Adrar Plateau and the iconic "Eye of the Sahara" (Richat Structure) at about 11°W — one of the most-photographed features of the Earth from space.

Mali

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Mali in the Sahara north of Timbuktu, through Taoudenni and the salt-mining region. This is the most remote stretch of the line in West Africa — the only roads are camel-and-truck tracks linking the salt mines to the inhabited Sahel further south.

Algeria

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Algeria in the heart of the Sahara, through Tamanrasset Province. The line passes near the Hoggar Mountains, an ancient massif rising above the desert plain. Tamanrasset itself, the largest town on the Algerian Sahara, sits about 200 km south of the line.

Niger

The Tropic of Cancer crosses northern Niger through Agadez Region, including the Aïr Mountains and the Ténéré Desert. The Aïr range is the largest mountain massif in the central Sahara; the Ténéré dunes are among the largest sand seas on Earth.

Libya

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Libya in the Fezzan region of the southwestern Sahara. The line runs through some of the most arid territory on Earth — annual rainfall averages less than 25 mm, and summer ground temperatures can exceed 70 °C.

Egypt

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Egypt just south of Aswan, near the Lake Nasser dam. The dam — the High Dam, completed in 1970 — is the largest embankment dam in the world and the line passes within 100 km of it. Egypt is one of the few Tropic of Cancer countries with a major population centre near the line: Aswan city sits at about 24°N, just north of the Tropic.

Saudi Arabia

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Saudi Arabia through the Najd plateau, passing close to the capital Riyadh (which sits at 24.7°N, just north of the line). The line continues east through the Eastern Province toward the UAE border. Saudi Arabia's hot-desert climate (BWh) is at its most extreme on the Tropic of Cancer, with summer noon temperatures regularly exceeding 50 °C.

United Arab Emirates

The Tropic of Cancer just clips the southern UAE, passing through the Empty Quarter (Rub' al-Khali) — the world's largest contiguous sand desert. The line's short stretch through the UAE is uninhabited; the populated coastal cities (Abu Dhabi, Dubai) sit north of the line.

Oman

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Oman through the Empty Quarter and the inland desert. The line exits Oman on the Arabian Sea coast roughly 200 km west of the Omani capital Muscat.

India

India is the country with the longest Tropic of Cancer stretch — the line crosses the entire subcontinent west to east through eight states: Gujarat (entering near Ahmedabad), Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal (just clipping Kolkata's northern suburbs), Tripura, and Mizoram. The Tropic divides India climatologically — north of the line is the Indo-Gangetic Plain (subtropical), south is peninsular India (tropical).

Bangladesh

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Bangladesh through Rangpur Division in the north of the country. The line runs through some of the most densely populated rural land on Earth — Bangladesh's overall population density is over 1,200 people per km², and the Tropic passes through districts that sit at or above that average.

Myanmar

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Myanmar through the Sagaing and Mandalay regions, near the city of Mandalay (Myanmar's second-largest). The line continues east toward the Shan Plateau and the China border.

China

The Tropic of Cancer crosses southern China through four provinces: Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian. Major cities near the line include Kunming (just north), Nanning (south), Guangzhou (just south at 23.1°N), and Shantou. The Tropic divides China into a subtropical north and a tropical south, with significant climate and agricultural consequences.

Taiwan

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Taiwan through Chiayi County in the west and Hualien County in the east, dividing the island roughly in half. A famous painted line and monument in the town of Shuishang in Chiayi marks the exact crossing — a popular tourist stop. Taiwan is the easternmost country on the Tropic of Cancer.

Climate at the Tropic of Cancer

The Tropic of Cancer sits at one of the most climatologically significant latitudes on Earth. It is the centre of the descending branch of the Hadley circulation — the global atmospheric overturning that lifts moist air at the Equator, drives it poleward at high altitude, and brings it back down at roughly 30° latitude (with the Tropic at 23.4° just inside that band). Descending air warms adiabatically and dries out, which is why the world's largest hot deserts cluster at this latitude in both hemispheres.

On the Tropic of Cancer specifically, the deserts are: the Sahara (the world's largest hot desert, 9.2 million km²) covering the African leg of the line; the Arabian Desert (covering Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman) at 2.3 million km²; and the Thar Desert in India and Pakistan. The line also crosses the Mexican Plateau's northern arid zone and Taiwan's humid subtropics — Taiwan is one of the few moist regions on the Tropic.

The Indian and Chinese sections experience monsoon climates because the seasonal northward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) brings the rain belt over the line in summer. India's south-west monsoon delivers 80% of the country's annual rain in just four months (June through September), and the Tropic of Cancer marks the approximate northern edge of full monsoon penetration into the subcontinent.

The June solstice and the Cancer constellation

The Tropic of Cancer is named for the constellation Cancer the Crab. The naming dates to the era of Greek and Hellenistic astronomy (around 200 BCE), when astronomers observed that the sun appeared in front of the Cancer constellation at the moment of the June solstice — the day the sun reaches its northernmost declination. The latitude where the sun is directly overhead on that day was therefore named the “Tropic of Cancer” (Greek tropikosmeaning “turning point”).

Today, due to about 2,000 years of axial precession (the slow wobble of Earth's rotation axis), the June solstice sun no longer appears in Cancer — it now appears in Taurus, with Gemini following in a few hundred years. The names “Tropic of Cancer” and “Tropic of Capricorn” have been retained for historical continuity even though the underlying astronomical alignments have shifted.

The exact latitude of the Tropic of Cancer is also not fixed in time. Earth's axial tilt oscillates between about 22.1° and 24.5° on a 41,000-year cycle (one component of the Milankovitch cycles that drive ice ages), causing the Tropic to drift north and south by about 14 metres per year. The Tropic is currently moving south at that rate; it will reach 22.1° around the year 12,000 CE.

Where to stand on the Tropic of Cancer: monuments and visitor sites

Several countries have built monuments marking the Tropic of Cancer. The most prominent is the Tropic of Cancer Marker in Shuishang, Chiayi County, Taiwan — a tall white obelisk and small museum that mark the exact latitude with a painted line and a sundial. The site has been a tourist destination since the 1900s and includes ceremonial ceremonies on the June solstice. In Aswan, Egypt, an obelisk and visitor centre near the High Dam mark the line; the site is famous because the ancient astronomer Eratosthenes used Aswan's position on (or very near) the Tropic to compute Earth's circumference around 240 BCE.

In Mexico, the Tropic of Cancer Visitor Center near Mazatlán features markers and educational displays. In India, painted line markers are common along highways crossing the line, including a notable one in Mahasamund, Chhattisgarh. The Sahara crossings (Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Libya) have informal painted line markers along desert highways, mostly placed by truck drivers using GPS.

Related tools and resources

For the other major lines of latitude and longitude, see our companion tools: the Equator (0° latitude), the Tropic of Capricorn (the southern mirror of this line), Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, Prime Meridian, and International Date Line. To compare the relative sizes of the Tropic of Cancer countries side-by-side (Mexico vs. India vs. China), use our country size comparison tool.

For exact latitude and longitude lookups, see the latitude longitude finder. For solar position at any point on the Tropic of Cancer (including solstice zero-shadow day), see the sun position calculator. For travel-distance calculations between Tropic of Cancer cities, use distance between two places.

Frequently asked questions

The Tropic of Cancer is the parallel of latitude at 23°26′N (23.4394° decimal degrees) — the northernmost point on Earth where the sun can pass directly overhead. It marks the northern boundary of the tropics. South of the Tropic, the sun reaches zenith at least once a year; north of it, the sun is never directly overhead.

The Tropic of Cancer passes through 17 countries: Mexico, Bahamas, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, and Taiwan. The line crosses three continents (North America, Africa, Asia) and two oceans (Atlantic, Pacific).

Seventeen countries. The Tropic of Cancer is the parallel that crosses the most countries — more than the Equator (13), Tropic of Capricorn (10), Arctic Circle (8), or Antarctic Circle (0).

The Tropic of Cancer is at 23°26′10″N — or 23.4394° in decimal degrees. The exact latitude is set by Earth's axial tilt and shifts very slowly over time (about 14 metres per year as the tilt oscillates between 22.1° and 24.5° on a 41,000-year cycle).

The Tropic of Cancer is 36,788 km (22,859 miles) long — about 92% the length of the Equator. All parallels of latitude are shorter than the Equator because they are smaller circles closer to the poles; at the Tropic of Cancer's latitude, the circumference is reduced by a factor of cos(23.4394°) ≈ 0.917.

The line is named for the constellation Cancer the Crab. At the time the name was coined (around 200 BCE), the sun was located in the Cancer constellation at the moment of the June solstice — the day the sun reaches its northernmost point. Due to ~2,000 years of axial precession, the June solstice sun now appears in Taurus, but the name has stuck.

On the June solstice (around 21 June), the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer at solar noon. This is the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere and the moment when the Northern Hemisphere is most tilted toward the sun. At any point on the Tropic of Cancer at solar noon on this day, vertical objects cast no shadow — the "zero shadow" phenomenon.

On any standard world map, the Tropic of Cancer is the horizontal line about a third of the way down from the top of the visible world, just south of the Mediterranean and north of central India and central Africa. The interactive map at the top of this page highlights the Tropic of Cancer in orange, with all 17 countries it passes through highlighted in translucent fills.

The Tropic of Cancer sits at the latitude where descending dry air from the Hadley cell creates large desert belts. The world's largest hot desert — the Sahara — sits squarely on the Tropic, as do the Arabian Desert (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman) and the Thar Desert (India). India and China experience monsoon climates because the seasonal shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone brings summer wet seasons. Bahamas and Taiwan are humid maritime exceptions.

No. The closest US territory is Hawaii, whose main inhabited islands sit between 19°N (Big Island) and 22°N (Niihau) — south of the Tropic of Cancer. The Tropic crosses between the main Hawaiian Islands and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (which extend to 28°N, north of the line). No inhabited US state or territory is on the Tropic of Cancer.

Several countries have monuments marking the line. The most-visited is the Tropic of Cancer Monument in Shuishang, Chiayi County, Taiwan — a tall white obelisk with a painted line and museum. Other notable markers exist near Aswan, Egypt; in Mahasamund, India; and in northern Mexico (Tropic of Cancer Visitor Center). Many Saharan crossings have informal painted line markers along desert highways.

They are mirror images. The Tropic of Cancer is at 23.4394°N (Northern Hemisphere); the Tropic of Capricorn is at 23.4394°S (Southern Hemisphere). Both are at the same latitude in absolute value, both define the boundary of the tropics in their hemisphere, and both correspond to the sun being directly overhead on a solstice — June for Cancer, December for Capricorn.

Data sources & methodology

Country list: 17 countries — hand-curated from Wikipedia and verified against Natural Earth 1:110m country polygons.

Per-country length: computed at runtime via Turf.js lineIntersectagainst each Natural Earth country polygon, then paired into entry/exit segments and summed using the haversine formula on a 6,371 km sphere.

Latitude: 23°26′10″N (23.4394° decimal). The exact latitude shifts slightly each year due to Earth's axial tilt oscillation.

Map:MapLibre GL JS with OpenFreeMap “Liberty” vector tiles. Last reviewed 8 May 2026.

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