Null Island
The weather buoy moored at the coordinates of Null Island
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 Null Island
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| Geography | |
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| Coordinates | 0°N 0°E / 0°N 0°ECoordinates: 0°N 0°E / 0°N 0°E |
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| This fictional island is a cartographical convenience only | |
Null Island is a fictional island in the Gulf of Guinea added to the Natural Earth public domain map dataset, located where the equator crosses the prime meridian, at coordinates 0°N 0°E / 0°N 0°E. Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1 meter square island" with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping." Although intended humorously, the fiction has a serious purpose and is used by mapping systems to trap errors. Such errors arise, for example, where an image artifact is erroneously associated to the location by software which cannot attribute a geo-position, and instead associates a latitude and longitude of "Null,Null" or "0,0". Null Island was developed as an idea in 2011 or slightly earlier. Since then, numerous web pages have documented this fictional landmass's flag, geography, and history.
In reality, a weather observation buoy, part of the PIRATA system, is moored at the supposed location of the island.
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Wikipedia