Earth Sandwich / City antipodes / Makkah
Antipode finder · Saudi Arabia
The antipode of
Makkah.
Draw a straight line from Makkah (21.43° N, 39.83° E) through the centre of the Earth and it comes out at 21.43° S, 140.17° W, in the South Pacific Ocean, 51 km from the nearest dry land, off the coast of French Polynesia. A sloppy Earth sandwich is possible.
- Makkah
- 21.43° N, 39.83° E · about 440 m above sea level · 1,578,722 people
- Antipode
- 21.43° S, 140.17° W
- What is there
- The South Pacific Ocean; the sea floor there lies about 4,120 m below the surface
- Nearest dry land
- 51 km from the antipode, on the coast of French Polynesia
- Nearest town
- Otepa, French Polynesia · 377 km from the antipode
- Nearest big city
- Auckland · 4,650 km from the antipode
- Sandwich verdict
- SLOPPY dry land within 200 km of the antipode
Can you make an Earth sandwich from Makkah?
Nearly: a sloppy-grade Earth sandwich. The antipode of Makkah lies in the South Pacific Ocean, 51 km from the nearest dry land in French Polynesia. Sandwich Law allows a slice within 200 km of the true antipode, and the verifying grid rates Makkah sloppy, so bread in Makkah and bread near Otepa, French Polynesia still count as one sandwich. The elevation bonus depends on the spot chosen for the dry slice.
Makkah is on the The South Pacific ↔ the Sahara & Sahel corridor. Its guide lists where every city on both sides lands and how to make an Earth sandwich there.
How this was worked out: the antipode flips the latitude and moves the longitude by 180°. Land or sea comes from the OpenStreetMap coastline the map uses; the sandwich verdict and elevations come from the verifier's 0.2° grid (Natural Earth land, ETOPO 2022 relief); water names from Natural Earth; towns and populations from GeoNames. The city's position is GeoNames' point for it; a big city's suburbs spread tens of kilometres around that point, and the figures move with them. Generated 2026-09-29.