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Western Hemisphere


The Western Hemisphere is a geographical term for the half of the earth that lies west of the Prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, UK) and east of the antimeridian, the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.

In this sense, the Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas, the western portions of Europe and Africa, the extreme eastern tip of Russia, numerous territories in Oceania, and a portion of Antarctica, while excluding some of the Aleutian Islands to the southwest of the Alaskan mainland.

In an effort to define the Western Hemisphere as the parts of the world which are not part of the Old World, there also exist projections which use the 20th meridian west and the diametrically opposed 160th meridian east to define the hemisphere. This projection excludes the European and African mainlands and a small portion of northeast Greenland, but includes more of eastern Russia and Oceania.

The center of the Western Hemisphere is located in the Pacific Ocean at the intersection of the 90th meridian west and the equator very close to the Galápagos.

The highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere is Aconcagua in the Andes of Argentina at 6,960.8 metres (22,837 ft).


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