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Washington's Own Prime Meridian

By: Rebecca Sheir // November 8, 2010
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D.C.'s Meridian Hill Park got its name from the Prime Meridian Thomas Jefferson proposed along 16th Street NW.
Rebecca Sheir
D.C.'s Meridian Hill Park got its name from the Prime Meridian Thomas Jefferson proposed along 16th Street NW.

It's been nearly 130 years since Washington, D.C., hosted the International Meridian Conference, where 25 nations met to decide where the world's Prime Meridian ought to be.

The 41 delegates decided on Greenwich, England. But before the Royal Greenwich Observatory formed the natural splitting point for the globe's longitude, Washington, D.C., had a meridian of its own. Two D.C. landmarks are situated along what would have been "Washington's Meridian."

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