Eastern Hemisphere

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Eastern Hemisphere

The Eastern Hemisphere, also Eastern hemisphere or eastern hemisphere, is a geographical

Geography

Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth"....
term for the half of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
that is east of the Prime Meridian

Prime Meridian

The Prime Meridian is the meridian at which longitude is defined to be 0?.The Prime Meridian and the opposite 180th meridian , which the International Date Line generally follows, form a great circle that divides the Earth into the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemispheres....
(which crosses Greenwich

Greenwich

'Greenwich' is a district in south-east London, England, on the south bank of the River Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. It is best known for its maritime history and as giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time....
, England

England

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
) and west of 180° longitude.

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Why is Africa considered part of the Eastern Hemisphere?

What hemisphere is Africa in

Encyclopedia

The Eastern Hemisphere, also Eastern hemisphere or eastern hemisphere, is a geographical

Geography

Geography is the study of the Earth and its lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth"....
term for the half of the Earth

Earth

Prime Meridian

Greenwich

England

United Kingdom

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
and Australia

Australia (continent)

Australia Sahul is the smallest of the geographic continents, though not of geological continents. There is no universally accepted definition of the word "continent"; the lay definition is "One of the main continuous bodies of land on the earth's surface." ....
, vis-à-vis the Western Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere or western hemisphere, is a geography term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian , the other half being the Eastern Hemisphere....
, which includes the Americas

Americas

The Americas are the region of the Western hemisphere that consists of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions....
. In addition, it may be used in a cultural

Cultural geography

Cultural geography is a sub-field within human geography. Cultural geography is the study of cultural products and norms and their variations across and relations to spaces and places....
or geopolitical

Geopolitics

Geopolitics is the art and practice of using international political power. Traditionally, the term has applied primarily to the impact of geography on politics, but its usage has evolved over the past century to encompass a wider connotation....
sense as a synonym for 'Old World

Old World

The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans, Asians, and Africans in the 15th century....
'.

Overview

The line demarcating the eastern and western hemispheres is an arbitrary convention, unlike the equator (an imaginary line running across the middle of the earth), (equidistant from the Earth

Earth

Geographical pole

A geographical pole , is either of two points on the surface of a spinning planet or other spinning body, at 90 degrees from its equator, at one of the two points where the Axis of rotation around which the body spins meets the surface of the body....
) which divides the northern

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator....
and southern hemispheres

Southern Hemisphere

The Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator?the word sphere literally means 'half ball'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere south of the celestial equator....
. The Prime Meridian at 0° longitude

Longitude

Longitude , symbolized by the Greek character lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement....
and the International Date Line, around 180° longitude are the conventionally accepted boundaries, since they divide eastern longitudes from western longitudes. Using this demarcation puts portions of western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe refers to the countries in the western most half of Europe. This concept has had different meanings, political and cultural as well as geographical issues have influenced the area....
, Africa and eastern Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
in the western hemisphere, thereby diluting its usefulness for cartography, as well as for geopolitical constructs, since all of Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
and Africa are typically included in the eastern hemisphere. Consequently, the meridians of 20°W and the diametrically opposed 160°E are often used, which includes all of the European and African mainlands, but also includes a small portion of northeast Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago....
(typically reckoned as part of North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
) and excludes more of eastern Russia and Oceania

Oceania

Oceania is a geography, often geopolitics, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville....
(e.g., New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
).

The two major regions of Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
are named after their positions mainly within a single hemisphere; East Antarctica

East Antarctica

East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, is one of the two major regions of the Antarctica continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the Transantarctic Mountains and comprising Coats Land, Queen Maud Land, Enderby Land, Mac Robertson Land, Wilkes Land and Victoria Land....
is named for the Eastkyle.