Tropic of Capricorn — World Map, Countries It Crosses, and Geographic Facts
By Marko Visic · Updated Oct 3, 2026
The Tropic of Capricorn is the parallel of latitude at 23°26′S — the southernmost point on Earth where the sun can pass directly overhead. At 36,788 km long, it crosses 10 countries on three continents and three oceans. Click any country on the map for the entry and exit longitudes and the land it crosses.
| Country | Land on the line | Enters → leaves (approx.) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chile | 351 km (218 mi) | 70.59° W → 67.15° W | Crosses the Atacama Desert |
| Argentina | 586 km (364 mi) | 67.15° W → 61.42° W | Passes through Jujuy, Salta and Formosa provinces |
| Paraguay | 602 km (374 mi) | 61.42° W → 55.53° W | |
| Brazil | 1,072 km (666 mi) | 55.53° W → 45.04° W | Crosses Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná and São Paulo |
| Namibia | 566 km (352 mi) | 14.44° E → 19.98° E | Crosses the Namib Desert |
| Botswana | 749 km (465 mi) | 19.98° E → 27.31° E | Passes through the Kalahari |
| South Africa | 430 km (267 mi) | 27.31° E → 31.52° E | Crosses the full width of Limpopo province, about 430 km from the Botswana border to the Mozambique border |
| Mozambique | 400 km (249 mi) | 31.52° E → 35.44° E | |
| Madagascar | 402 km (250 mi) | 43.74° E → 47.67° E | Crosses the southern third of the island |
| Australia | 3,788 km (2,354 mi) | 113.77° E → 150.84° E | Crosses Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland; Alice Springs sits almost on the line |
| Total land: 8,946 km (5,559 mi), 24.3% of the line | |||
Computed from Natural Earth 1:10m country boundaries (v5.1.2, public domain) on the WGS-84 ellipsoid, 2 Oct 2026. Floating ice shelves are not counted; figures can be off by a few km.
Bodies of water crossed
Quick facts
- Named for the constellation Capricorn — at the moment of the December solstice, the sun was historically located in Capricorn.
- On the December solstice (around 21 December), the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn at solar noon — the longest day of the year for the Southern Hemisphere.
- Three of the world’s great deserts sit on or near the Tropic of Capricorn: the Atacama (Chile), the Kalahari (Botswana/Namibia), and the Australian Outback.
- The Tropic of Capricorn passes just north of São Paulo — making the city the largest in the southern subtropics.
- No major Northern-Hemisphere country names contain "Capricorn", but several Southern-Hemisphere highways are named for it (Capricorn Highway in Queensland, Australia, runs along it).
What is the Tropic of Capricorn? Definition and Geographic Facts
The Tropic of Capricorn is one of the five major parallels of latitude on Earth. By definition, it is the southernmost latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at solar noon — an event that happens once a year, on the December solstice. South of the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun is never directly overhead; north of it, the sun reaches zenith at least once a year. The Tropic is the southern boundary of the tropics, the Southern Hemisphere's mirror of the Tropic of Cancer.
Tropic of Capricorn definition (short): the parallel of latitude at 23°26′S marking the southern boundary of the tropics. Tropic of Capricorn latitude: -23.4359° (decimal degrees), set by Earth's axial tilt of about 23.4°. Tropic of Capricorn length: 36,788 km (22,859 mi) — the same length as the Tropic of Cancer, both about 92% the length of the Equator.
Where is the Tropic of Capricorn on a world map? On any standard world map, the Tropic of Capricorn is the horizontal line about a third of the way up from the bottom of the visible world. It runs west-to-east across the South Pacific, through Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil in South America, the South Atlantic, southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique), across the Indian Ocean and Madagascar, then through Australia, before completing its 36,788 km loop in the Pacific.
Astronomically, the Tropic of Capricorn is the line where the sun reaches its lowest possible altitude in the Northern Hemisphere — and its highest in the Southern — at the moment of the December solstice (around 21-22 December). On that day, vertical objects on the line cast no shadow at solar noon — the “zero shadow day.” Climatologically, the Tropic sits in the descending branch of the Southern Hadley cell, where air sinks and warms — producing the Atacama, Namib, Kalahari, and Outback deserts.
How to use this Tropic of Capricorn map
- Open the world map. The yellow horizontal line is the Tropic of Capricorn at 23°26′S (-23.4359° latitude) — 36,788 km long, the same length as the Tropic of Cancer. The 10 countries the Tropic of Capricorn passes through are highlighted with a translucent yellow fill.
- Click any country to see where the line enters and exits. Click a highlighted country on the map to open a popup showing the longitudes where the Tropic of Capricorn enters and exits, plus the kilometers of land crossed. Australia is the longest stretch by far — about 3,800 km across the Outback.
- Read the country-by-country crossing table. The reference table below the map lists all 10 countries in west-to-east order with the kilometers of land the Tropic of Capricorn crosses in each, the entry and exit longitudes, and notes. Australia has by far the longest land stretch.
- Read the climate, astronomy, and geography notes. Below the table: bodies of water crossed (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian) and a fact panel covering the December solstice, why the line is named after Capricorn, and the three great Southern-Hemisphere deserts that sit on the Tropic.
The 10 countries the Tropic of Capricorn passes through
From west to east, here is what the Tropic of Capricorn passes through in each country, with the landmarks, towns, deserts, and ecological zones along the line.
Chile
The Tropic of Capricorn enters Chile on the Pacific coast in the Antofagasta Region and crosses the heart of the Atacama Desert — the driest non-polar place on Earth. The town of Antofagasta sits about 80 km south of the line; the Tropic itself runs through largely uninhabited desert plateau and the Cordillera Domeyko range. Chile's stretch of the Tropic is roughly 380 km long.
Argentina
The Tropic of Capricorn passes through Jujuy, Salta and Formosa provinces in northern Argentina — from the high-altitude Andean foothills of the far northwest down to the lowland Gran Chaco in the east. The line passes near the city of San Salvador de Jujuy and through the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape.
Paraguay
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses Paraguay through the central Gran Chaco region — flat, dry savanna and thorn-scrub forest. The line passes north of the capital Asunción (which sits at 25.3°S, just south of the Tropic). The Paraguayan Chaco is one of the most sparsely populated lowland regions of South America.
Brazil
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses Brazil through Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná and São Paulo. The line passes just north of São Paulo city — the largest city in the southern subtropics — and just north of the Tropic of Capricorn Monument in São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park. Brazil's Capricorn stretch is roughly 1,100 km.
Namibia
The Tropic of Capricorn enters Namibia on the Atlantic coast at the Skeleton Coast and crosses the entire country east-to-west through the Namib Desert — the world's oldest desert (estimated 55 million years). The Namib is famous for the towering red dunes of Sossusvlei and the ghost-town diamond rush of Kolmanskop, both south of the line; the Tropic itself runs through equally dramatic but less-visited interior dunes.
Botswana
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses central Botswana through the heart of the Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari is technically a semi-arid sand basin (not a true desert) that supports remarkable wildlife, including the Central Kalahari Game Reserve which the Tropic borders. The capital Gaborone sits at 24.6°S — south of the line.
South Africa
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses the full width of Limpopo province, about 430 km from the Botswana border to the Mozambique border. The line passes through the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO site featuring the ruins of an iron-age kingdom that flourished from 900-1300 CE. Most of South Africa, including all major cities, sits south of the Tropic.
Mozambique
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses central Mozambique east-to-west through Inhambane Province, ending on the Indian Ocean coast at roughly 35°E. The Mozambican coast on the Tropic is fringed by mangroves and coral reefs; this stretch is sparsely developed but contains important sea-turtle nesting beaches.
Madagascar
The Tropic of Capricorn crosses Madagascar through the southern third of the island — through Toliara Province on the dry southwest coast and exiting on the eastern coast in Anosy Region. Madagascar's south is the country's most arid zone, with annual rainfall under 400 mm and the unique spiny forest ecosystem found nowhere else on Earth.
Australia
Australia hosts the longest single stretch of the Tropic of Capricorn — about 3,800 km from the Indian Ocean coast at Western Australia’s Carnarvon, across the Outback through Northern Territory (with Alice Springs sitting almost exactly on the line at 23.7°S), and into Queensland to the Pacific coast at Rockhampton. The Capricorn Highway (Australia's National Route 66) follows the Tropic across central Queensland, and the city of Rockhampton has been nicknamed 'the Beef Capital of Australia' and 'Capricornia' for its position on the line.
Climate at the Tropic of Capricorn: three great deserts
The Tropic of Capricorn sits at one of the most climatologically significant latitudes on Earth — the center of the descending branch of the Southern Hadley circulation. Descending air warms and dries, which is why three of the world's great deserts cluster on the Tropic in the Southern Hemisphere: the Atacama Desert in Chile (the driest non-polar place on Earth, with some weather stations recording no measurable rainfall for decades), the Namib Desert in Namibia (the oldest desert, ~55 million years), and the Australian Outback (the largest desert continent on the line, covering most of central Australia).
The Brazilian and Madagascan stretches break the desert pattern — Brazil's Capricorn-band sits in the moisture trap of the Atlantic trade winds, producing humid subtropical and tropical climates around São Paulo. Madagascar's southern third is moderately arid (the spiny forest biome) but not as extreme as the African mainland deserts. South Africa's crossing of the line runs the full width of subtropical Limpopo, with summer monsoon rainfall.
The December solstice and the Capricorn constellation
The Tropic of Capricorn is named for the constellation Capricornus the Sea-Goat. 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 Capricornus constellation at the moment of the December solstice — the day the sun reaches its southernmost declination. The latitude where the sun is directly overhead on that day was therefore named the “Tropic of Capricorn” (Greek tropikos meaning “turning point”).
Today, due to about 2,000 years of axial precession (the slow wobble of Earth's rotation axis), the December solstice sun no longer appears in Capricorn — it now appears in Sagittarius, with Ophiuchus 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 Capricorn is also not fixed in time. Over the last million years the tilt has ranged between 22.1° and 24.5° in a cycle of about 41,000 years — one of the NASA-documented Milankovitch cycles that drive ice ages; it is slowly decreasing and will reach its minimum about 10,000 years from now. Because the tilt is shrinking, the Tropic drifts toward the Equator by about 14.4 meters a year, mirroring the Tropic of Cancer's movement in the Northern Hemisphere.
Where to stand on the Tropic of Capricorn: monuments and visitor sites
Several countries have built monuments marking the Tropic of Capricorn. The most-visited is the Tropic of Capricorn Marker in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia — a metal sculpture and information panel on the Stuart Highway. The Australian Capricorn Highway (National Route 66) runs along the line in Queensland for roughly 800 km. In Brazil, a Tropic of Capricorn monument stands in São Paulo's Ibirapuera Park, just north of the city. In Namibia, the Trans-Kalahari Highway features a Tropic crossing marker near Windhoek. In Chile, the Tropic crossing in the Atacama Desert is marked along Route 5 (the Pan-American Highway).
Related tools and resources
How any of these reference lines actually appears on a flat map depends entirely on the projection — our visual guide What is a Map Projection? covers the math and shows six projections side-by-side, with Tissot indicatrices on each.
For the other major lines of latitude and longitude, see our companion tools: the Equator (0° latitude), the Tropic of Cancer (the northern mirror of this line), Arctic Circle, Antarctic Circle, Prime Meridian, and International Date Line. To compare the relative sizes of the Tropic of Capricorn countries (Brazil vs. Australia is a striking comparison — Brazil's 8.5 million km² vs. Australia's 7.7 million km²), 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 Capricorn (including December solstice zero-shadow day), see the sun position calculator. For travel-distance calculations between Capricorn cities (Alice Springs to Rio is 14,000+ km), use distance between two places.
Frequently asked questions
Data sources & methodology
Country list and per-country length: the line was intersected with every country polygon from Natural Earth 1:10m Admin 0 (v5.1.2, public domain). Lengths are measured on the WGS-84 ellipsoid (arc of the parallel) and rounded to the nearest kilometer; coordinates are rounded to 0.01°. Floating ice shelves are not land in this dataset, and 1:10m coastline detail can move a figure by a few km.
Latitude: 23°26′09″S (-23.4359° decimal). Mirrors the Tropic of Cancer's position; 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.