A Journey To Null Island (April 2018)

Travel devotees will tell you that there is simply no place on earth like Null Island. That statement, although perhaps sounding like an enthusiastic endorsement of a favourite destination, is not. Null Island, other than being a virtual online destination, simply doesn’t exist.

Situated where the Equator intersects with the Prime Meridian at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude, it is the encoded default location where computer or smartphone users are sent by Google Maps or other Global Positioning System applications if, as apparently often happens, there has been a  mistake made in the geocoding process. One cartographer described it as “the place where the system goes when it actually doesn’t know where to go”. As a result it is said to be one of the most visited places on earth, at least virtually, by millions of computer users.

Something of an inside joke with cartographers, it is believed that it was about 2011 when the location was named Null Island, the name Null chosen on account of the “island’s” two zero coordinates. The arbitrary creation of this fictitious one square meter plot of land, an island of misfit data as some have called it, was with the intention that it would serve as a virtual collection point for geographic address errors that geocoders could then flag and correct.  

Although that remains the case, it has also grown to become much more than that, the non-existent island having now attracted something of an online fan base. Global information mapping system (GIS)enthusiasts have created fantasy maps of the island as well as a national flag. A web site (no longer active) that was created for the island informed readers about this supposed republic of 4000 with its own language, currency (the null), and a thriving tourism industry. People feeling excluded or ostracized speak of having been banished to Null Island. 

Quite apart from the spoofing and the millions who have by default virtually visited Null Island, some few have actually been able to travel to zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude. Not a convenient or easy location to visit, it lies in the South Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Guinea about 350 miles south of Ghana and over 1000 miles west of Gabon. Although Null Island is of course nowhere to be found, those making the journey are rewarded with the sight of a lonely weather buoy. Used to

collect year round climate data for the area, the buoy marks the exact location of the zero-zero coordinates. 

Although it was never on my travel to do list, I unexpectedly made it to Null Island on April 12, 2018 while on board Holland America’s cruise ship ms Amsterdam which I had joined in Singapore for the last two legs of its world cruise that year. En route from Luanda, Angola to Banjul,The Gambia the captain announced that he had received permission from head office to significantly divert course so that we would pass over the zero-zero coordinates, an area apparently not within regular shipping lanes.  In his over 50 year career of sailing the world, the captain said, this would in fact be the first time he had ever sailed over the spot.

Not surprisingly, the event itself was not particularly memorable.  Occurring at 11:23 p.m. in the pitch dark, it was hardly a Kodak moment. It does, however, mean I am now one of the few who can claim bragging rights about having actually, rather than virtually, made it to this out of the way bit of water and its imaginary island.

 

David Arntfield