Earth Sandwich / City antipodes / Soweto
Antipode finder · South Africa
The antipode of
Soweto.
Draw a straight line from Soweto (26.27° S, 27.86° E) through the centre of the Earth and it comes out at 26.27° N, 152.14° W, in the North Pacific Ocean, 725 km from the nearest dry land, off the coast of the United States. The other slice of an Earth sandwich would sink.
- Soweto
- 26.27° S, 27.86° E · about 1,640 m above sea level · 1,695,047 people
- Antipode
- 26.27° N, 152.14° W
- What is there
- The North Pacific Ocean; the sea floor there lies about 5,400 m below the surface
- Nearest dry land
- 725 km from the antipode, on the coast of the United States
- Nearest town
- Huelo, United States · 727 km from the antipode
- Nearest big city
- Los Angeles · 3,355 km from the antipode
- Sandwich verdict
- SOGGY the other slice lands in open water
- Nearest exact spot
- 726 km away, 75 km from Xumo, Botswana ⇄ near Hana, United States
Can you make an Earth sandwich from Soweto?
No, not from Soweto itself. The other slice would land in the North Pacific Ocean, 725 km from the nearest dry land (the United States), where the sea floor lies about 5,400 m below the surface. Boats do not count (Sandwich Law § 1.3).
The nearest place from which an exact Earth sandwich is possible is 726 km from Soweto, 75 km from Xumo, Botswana. Its other slice would go down 6 km from Hana, United States.
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.