In 1936, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of that French mission, a monument was constructed near Ecuador’s capital, Quito. The monument is located at the line reckoned by the 18th-century French scientists to be zero degrees latitude, or the equator. To this day countless tourists visit the monument, called the Middle of the World. Here they can straddle the equator and be in two hemispheres at once. Or can they?

Not really. Recent findings have slightly relocated the equator. Amazingly, centuries before the French sages arrived, the native peoples inhabiting the area had already pinpointed this precise location. But how?

The True Equator

In 1997 the seemingly insignificant ruins of a semicircular wall were discovered on top of Mount Catequilla, which lies a little to the north of Quito. Using the satellite technology of the Global Positioning System (GPS), investigator Cristóbal Cobo discovered that one end of this wall was located precisely on the equator.b