Clime

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Clime

The seven climes (klima, plural klimata, meaning "inclination", referring to the angle between the axis of the celestial sphere

Celestial sphere

In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imagination rotation sphere of "gigantic radius", concentric spheres and coaxial with the Earth....
and the horizon) was a notion of dividing the Earth into zones in Classical Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
. The lists of klimata found in early geographers vary in their extension, but by convention, they numbered seven, counted from south to north.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Clime'

Start a new discussion about 'Clime'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

The seven climes (klima, plural klimata, meaning "inclination", referring to the angle between the axis of the celestial sphere

Celestial sphere

Classical antiquity

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
who in his Geography divided the northern temperate zone into seven zones (klimata).

Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, on the other hand, divided the Earth into five zones, assuming two frigid climes (the arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctica region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland....
and antarctic) around the poles, an uninhabitable torrid clime near the equator

Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
, and two temperate climes between the frigid and the torrid ones (Meteorology 2.5,362a32).

Ptolemy

Ptolemy gives a list of parallels, starting with the equator, and proceeding north at intervals, chosen so that the longest day (summer solstice

Solstice

A solstice is an astronomical event that occurs twice each year, when the tilt of the Earth's Rotation is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun's apparent position in the sky to reach its north or south extreme....
) increases in steps of a quarter of an hour from 12 hours at the equator to 18 hours at 58° N, and then, in larger steps, to 24 hours at the arctic circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circle of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It is the parallel of latitude that runs 66degree 33'39? north of the Equator....
.

But for the purposes of his geographical tables, Ptolemy reduces this list to eleven parallels, dividing the area between the equator and 54°1' N into ten segments, at half-hour intervals reaching from 12 hours to 17 hours. Even later in his work, he reduces this to seven parallels, reaching from 16°27' N (13 hours) to 48°32' N (16 hours).

In reducing his original system, informed by the spherical shape of the earth, into seven climes, Ptolemy was thus trying to reconcile his work with the geographical tradition of seven klimata. This division in seven zones may go back to notions of geography predating the idea of a spherical Earth

Spherical Earth

The concept of a Sphere Earth dates back to around the 6th century BCE in ancient Greek philosophy and possibly ancient Indian philosophy.The concept of a spherical Earth displaced earlier beliefs in a flat Earth: In early Mesopotamian thought, the world was portrayed as a flat disk floating in the ocean, and this forms the premise for ear...
introduced by Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
in the 6th century BC. Persian tradition knows seven karshvar
Karshvar

In the Avesta, reference is made to 7 karshvar , climes or zones, organizing the world map into a seven-storied ziggurat representing the cosmic mountain....
(Modern Persian

Persian language

Ziggurat

A ziggurat was a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Iran, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories or levels....
.

Maybe for this reason, Ptolemy's system of seven climes was primarily adopted by Arab

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
and Persian

Persian literature

Persian literature spans two and a half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources has been within historical greater Iran including present-day Iran as well as reigions of Central Asia where the Persian language has been the national language through history....
authors such as al-Biruni

Al-Biruni

, often known as 'Alberuni', 'Al Beruni' or variants, was a Persian people polymath scholar of the 11th century.He was a Islamic science and Islamic physics, an Anthropology and Comparative sociology, an Islamic astronomy and Alchemy and chemistry in Islam, a critic of Alchemy and chemistry in Islam and Islamic astrology, an encyc...
, al-Idrisi and al-Razi

Al-Razi

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi , known as Rhazes or Rasis after medieval Latinists, was a Persian people Alchemy , Islamic medicine, Early Islamic philosophy and scholar....
, the author of the 16th century haft iqlīm (seven climes), while in Europe, Aristotle's system of five climatic zones was more successful. This view dominated in medieval Europe, and existence and inhabitability of the Southern temperate zone, the antipodes

Antipodes

The antipodes refer to lands and peoples located on the opposite side of the world compared to the speaker. This has a general, linguistic meaning and a technical, geographical meaning....
, was a matter of dispute.

To identify the parallels delineating his climes, Ptolemy gives a geographical location through which they pass. The following is a list of the 33 parallels of the full system of climes, the reduced system of seven climes is indicated by additional numbers in brackets (note that the latitudes are the ones given by Ptolemy, not the modern exact values):

12:00 (equator
Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
)
12:15, 4°4' N: Taprobana
Taprobana

Taprobana was the historical name of an island in the Indian Ocean.It may have been*Sri Lanka as in Ptolemy's map and climes*Sumatra as in the birthplace of Henry the Black...
(Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India....
)
12:30, 8°25' N: Avalite bay (Saylac, Somalia
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
)
12:45 12°00' N: bay of Adulis
Adulis

Adulis is an archeology in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. It was the port of the Kingdom of Aksum, located on the coast of the Red Sea....
(Eritrea
Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the Country of Eritrea, is a country in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast....
)
(1.) 13:00, 16°27' N: Meroe
Meroë

Mero? is the name of an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum....
island
13:15, 20°14' N: Napaton (Sudan
Sudan

Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest in the African continent and the Arab World, and List of countries and outlying territories by total area by area....
)
(2.) 13:30, 23°51' N: Soene (Aswan
Aswan

Aswan , Egyptian language: Swenet , Coptic language: Swan; Greek language: Syene; ) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate....
)
13:45, 27°12' N: Thebes
Thebes, Egypt

Thebes was a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian Nome ....
(3.) 14:00, 30°22' N: Lower Egypt
Lower Egypt

Lower Egypt is the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the Fertile Crescent Nile Delta region, which stretches from the area between El-Aiyat and Zawyet Dahshur, south of modern-day Cairo, and the Mediterranean Sea....
14:15, 33°18' N: Phoenicia
Phoenicia

Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, extending to parts of Israel, Syria and the Palestinian territories....
(4.) 14:30, 36°00' N: Rhodes
Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
14:45, 38°35' N: Smyrna
Smyrna

Smyrna is an ancient city in Izmir in Turkey. Located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean Sea coast of Anatolia and aided by its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence before the Classical Era....
(5.) 15:00, 40°50' N: Hellespont
Hellespont

Hellespont was the ancient name of the narrow strait, now known by the modern European term 'Dardanelles'. It was so called from Helle , the daughter of Athamas, who was drowned here in the mythology of the Golden Fleece....
15:15, 43°04' N: Massalia (Marseilles)
(6.) 15:30, 45°01' N: the middle of the Black Sea
Black Sea

The Black Sea is an inland sea sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolia and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Seas and various straits....
15:45, 46°51' N: Istros river
(7.) 16:00, 48°32' N: the mouths of Borysthenes (Dnepr
Dnieper River

The Dnieper River , is one of the major rivers in Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea. Its total length is , of which lie within Russia, within Belarus, and within Ukraine....
)
16:15, 50°04' N: Maiotian lake
16:30, 51°06' N: the southern shore of Britannia
Britannia

Britannia was the term originally used by the Roman Empire to refer to the island of Great Britain. The term was later used to describe a Roman province covering much of the island, apart from the area beyond the Antonine Wall belonging to the Picts in the north, which was known as Caledonia....
16:45, 52°50' N: mouths of the Rhine
Rhine

File:Swiss Grand Canyon.jpgThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
17:00, 54°30' N: mouths of the Tanais
Tanais

Tanais is the ancient name for the Don River, Russia in Russia. Strabo regarded it as the boundary between Europe and Asia.In antiquity, Tanais was also the name of a city in the Don river delta that reaches into the northeasternmost part of the Sea of Azov, which the Greeks called Lake Maeotis....
river (Don)
17:15, 55° N: Brigantion in Britannia
17:30, 56° N: the middle of Great Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
17:45, 57° N: Katouraktonion
Catterick, North Yorkshire

Catterick, sometimes Catterick Village to distinguish it from the nearby Catterick Garrison, is a village in North Yorkshire. It dates back to Roman times, when Cataractonium was a Ancient Rome fort protecting the crossing of the Great North Road and Dere Street over the River Swale....
in Britannia
18:00, 58° N: the southern part of Britannia Minor
18:30, 59° N: the middle part of Britannia Minor
19:00, 61° N: the North of Britannia Minor
19:30, 62° N: Ebudes island
20:00, 63° N: Thule
Thule

Thule is, in classical literature, a place, usually an island. Ancient European descriptions and maps locate it either in the far north, often Iceland, possibly the Orkney Islands or Shetland Islands or Scandinavia, or in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance Iceland or Greenland....
(Iceland
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
)
21:00, 64° N: unknown "Scythia
Scythia

The Scythians or Scyths were an Eastern Iranian languages of Equestrianism nomadic pastoralists who dominated the Pontic steppe throughout Classical Antiquity....
n people"[?]
22:00, 65° N
23:00, 66° N
24:00, 66°08'40 N: the polar circle
Polar circle

A polar circle is either the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic Circle. On Earth, the Arctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66? 33' 38" N, and the Antarctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66? 33' 38" S....

Clime

Ptolemy

See also