Talk:Pole of inaccessibility

Untitled
The article says that this definition is used by explorers and ... conspiracy theorists. What conspiracy theories exist around these definitions? Nyh 10:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Eurasian Pole
Google shows a rather extensive building complex near the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility, at about. Anybody know what it is? ➥the Epopt 16:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks like it might be the town of Xazgat, which according to http://www.fallingrain.com/world/CH/13/Xazgat.html is at 46.33333°N, 86.36667°W. Google maps puts that about 4 miles to the north of where your link points to, which is the exact centre of the settlement, but I don't see anything much else nearby that could be Xazgat instead. The fallingrain.com link also says "approximate population for 7 km radius from this point: 169", while on the satellite photo it looks rather bigger than that... but who knows how accurate that population data might be. Matt 00:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC).

Five years later, the labeling on Google Maps has been much improved, and we see that the object at 46.33333°N, 86.36667°W is the headquarters of 一八四团场 (184 tuánchǎng), which can be roughly translated as "State [or Military] farm no. 184". This is shown at this location in the printed provincial map as well; this is a fairly common type of place name for this region, due to its land use history. Xazgat Township (夏孜盖乡) is, indeed, a few miles to the northwest, (upstream along the little river that flows there, disappearing in the desert). The new Irtysh–Karamay Canal runs in that area, and can now be seen on Google Maps as well; it runs in the approximately NNE to SSW direction, about 3 km north-west from this coordinate point. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:32, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Meaning of this sentence from article?
It isn't clear to me what this sentence means, "Coincidentally, the Eurasian and the Pacific poles have approximately the same radius." What type of radius are we talking about? ike9898 14:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have clarified that the Eurasian pole is about as far from the ocean as the Pacific pole is from land. ➥the Epopt 15:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Map
Someone with skill, how about a map? 71.102.144.27 20:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

N2i
What are the penguins on Team N2i's logo doing? ➥the Epopt 04:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Eurasian pole calculation
Someone has a clue on who calculated the coordinates of the pole and how? Any reference/citation?Andres72 15:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Southern Pole of Inaccessibility: various contradictions between articles

 * This article implies that the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility was first reached on December 14, 1958 by the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition (this information was recently copied across from South Pole, although I believe the coordinates originally given there were wrong and referred to a totally different definition of this Pole). The article Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station) implies that it was first reached by the second Soviet Antarctic Expedition, and the same date of 14 December 1958 is mentioned. Maybe both were in the area - I don't know - but it would be nice to clarify which expedition actually established the station, and which was the first to reach where and when. Note that it is not adequate just to state that someone was the "first to reach the Pole of Inaccessibility" because there is absolutely no agreement about where it is. Instead the firsts need to be explicitly referred to coordinate locations.
 * all sources refer to it as the third one Serge925 (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This article says that the Soviet Pole of Inaccessibility station lies 878 km from the South Pole. Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station) says 463 km. A simple calculation seems to indicate that the 463 km figure cannot be correct for the stated coordinates, but since the location of this wretched place is all such a muddle I'm reluctant to change it independently.


 * This article equates the defunct Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station) with "Polyus Nedostupnosti", yet the actual article Polyus Nedostupnosti says that it's "still active". Is this a mistake, or are we actually talking about two different stations?


 * Both entries are on the same subject, they should be merged. Polyus Nedostupnosti is in fact the Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station) and it is most definitely not 'still alive'. It operated briefly in December 1958 and subsequently suspended for good. The site was visited by in 2007 Henry Cookson's Team N2i kite-skiing through central Antarctica. The kite-skiers found the station almost entirely buried in snow.--Alvez3 (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Terminology
At some point in the past someone changed the name "Eurasian Pole of Inaccessiblity" to "Continental Pole of Inaccessibility" with the comment "Better naming, I think". I don't know what the preferred term is -- there are a lot more Google hits for "Eurasian" than "Continental", but how many of them are just effectively copies of the text that was once in Wikipedia I haven't tried to figure out.

Unfortunately with the addition now of another "continental pole", the section no longer really makes sense. It starts off saying "The Continental Pole of Inaccessibility ... is the place on land that is farthest from the ocean. It lies in Eurasia..." but then later says "In North America, the Continental Pole of Inaccessibility is in southwest South Dakota..." This implies that there is one such pole for every continent, so there is no such thing as "the" Continental Pole. To make sense of it one would have to qualify with "Eurasian Continental Pole of Inaccessibility", "North American Continental Pole of Inaccessibility" etc., in which case it seems much easier just to put it back how it was and call it the "Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility" (and "North American Pole of Inaccessibility" I suppose). Does anyone have any views on this? Matt 01:26, 31 July 2007 (UTC).

Map quality

 * The map shows dark red in the South Atlantic -- this seems wrong to me: the island of Tristan de Cunha lies right there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.185.127 (talk) 20:05, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, distance to coastline does not exceed 2000 km in the Indian ocean and neither in the Atlantic, as suggested in that map [[Image:Distance.from.coast.png|thumb|100px|right]]. The spanish Wikipedia has a more detailed map that we could use here: [[Image:Distancia_a_la_costa.png|thumb|400px|right|Map of distance to the coastline with locations of the main Poles of Inaccessibility. Thin isolines every 250 km; thick lines every 1000 km.]]. This image is besides better source-referenced.


 * Unfortunately, the Pacific ocean is distorted and squished to the margins in that map... AnonMoos (talk) 14:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The proposed image is a Mollweide projection, which has the advantage of respecting areas. Any equal-area projection will distort shapes. The image presently used Image:Distance.from.coast.png does not respect areas. See map projections. Gaianauta (talk) 13:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, your map is much better. I'll replace the incorrect one with it. -- Avenue (talk) 11:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What about two following items: 203.160.1.71 (talk) 11:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Atlantic Ocean pole of inaccessibility
 * Indian Ocean pole of inaccessibility

Spain? UK?
Why does the map have red dots on those countries?--hnnvansier (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, Great Britain is an island. As for Spain, the title of File:Distancia a la costa.png suggests that its creator had an interest in that country.
 * —WWoods (talk) 17:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I just tried to improve the caption in this respect, please check Gaianauta (talk) 15:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is one for Madagascar, Greenland, and Australia. Other major islands or peninulas seem not to include one. --85.164.221.63 (talk) 23:58, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

McFurthest Point, etc.
This article reminded me of the story that went around this year about the McFurthest Point - is that a pole of inaccessibility, or is there another term for it? I've heard various places referred to as isolated in certain ways 203.17.70.161 (talk) 02:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

North Pole of Accessibility Reached By...
I went to a talk this week by polar explorer Jim McNeill Ice Warrior. He claims that Sir Wally Herbert didn't get to the pole (partially because it was incorrectly calculated at that time). He is undertaking an expedition next year to be the first to the pole. Kenchikuben (talk) 12:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

North American PIA
I've deleted the uncited PIA near Kyle, South Dakota (cn-tagged for three years), leaving just the remaining (referenced) co-ordinates. Hopefully no-one objects. SP-KP (talk) 11:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Three points needed
The edit here removed some somewhat unencylopedic text (not written by me), with the edit summary "a third point isn't geometrically required". I don't see how that can be true. With only two points, couldn't one achieve greater separation by moving along a line equidistant from both those points? 86.160.216.39 (talk) 20:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

(continued...) The text currently says that the northern pole of inaccessibility is "equidistant from the closest landmasses, Ellesmere Island and Franz-Josef Land". Although it is theoretically possible for two of the points to be very close (say both on Ellesmere Island), this seems impossible looking at the map. It seems clear from the map that one could move from the northern pole of inaccessibility in a direction that takes one further away from both Ellesmere Island and Franz-Josef Land. Therefore, unless I am missing something, there must be a third equidistant landmass. 86.181.169.99 (talk) 19:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

First person to reach Northern Pole of Inaccessibility
According to our article, "The first person to reach the spot [i.e. Northern Pole of Inaccessibility] on foot was Sir Wally Herbert, who arrived by dogsled in 1968." However, this refers to "the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility, which no-one has ever reached before" and is dated 2006. There are several other websites (e.g., ), obviously well post-1968, that talk about this as a place that no one has ever visited. Which is right? Or could this be a case of different people using different definitions? It's very confusing. 86.181.169.99 (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I tried to reconcile these.... 86.179.1.77 (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Cats
Is there any particular reason that this article isn't in Category:Antarctica? I'd add it myself, but, at least in my experience, it seems like when articles aren't in their most obvious categories, there turns out to be a reason, so I thought that I'd ask. Heather (talk) 11:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Assuming that there are no objections, I've added it to the cat. Apologies if there was some reason why it shouldn't have been there.  Heather (talk) 03:56, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Oceanic P-of-I lat-lon looks not quite right
Maybe somebody has more definite lat-lons for the three islands, but assuming the south end of Ducie is 24.69S 124.79W, the north end of Maher is 72.966S 126.375W, and the SW end of Moto Nui is 27.202S 109.454W, then the pole is at 48.8815S 123.3429W.Tim Zukas (talk) 19:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Pole of inaccessibility. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090111011301/http://www.tierraspolares.es:80/catamaran/inaccesibilidad_i.htm to http://www.tierraspolares.es/catamaran/inaccesibilidad_i.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 01:13, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

"...as well as possible typographical errors"
Cartographical errors?

Topographical errors?

--Guy Macon (talk) 03:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Why not a pole of inaccessibility for Europe also??
I'm slightly confused as to why Europe doesn't seem to have a continental pole of accessibility? Each other continent seems to have one, but Europe and Asia seem to be just grouped together as 'Eurasia' which is a bit puzzling? If we were just going by supercontinents themselves, then both Africa and South America's shouldnt be shown on here either as they make up the supercontinents of Afro-Eurasia and America. Can someone tell me why this is? I would assume the European pole of inaccessibility to be in Russia somewhere for sure. -- 17:12, 20 September 2017 86.24.15.80


 * If the European pole of inaccessibility was right on the defined boundary of Europe (in the southern Ural Mountains or whatever), that could be taken as an indication that the concept is not too useful... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Except for a big chunk of Russia and perhaps Finland, Europe is a collection of peninsulas and islands. Using the Gulf of Finland at St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Azov as vertices. anything to the south and west of the line connecting them is on a peninsula. Using as vertices the northernmost part of the Gulf of Bothnia and the southwestern-most point on Russia's White Sea one has a peninsula containing Norway, Sweden, northwestern Finland, northern Russian Karelia, and the Kola Peninsula as another. Pbrower2a (talk) 22:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)


 * So what if Europe is a collection of peninsulas? A strange argument. Still, nothing prevents us from calculating the pole of inaccessibility of Europe according to the definition of this term? Or does someone just not like the fact that it will be on the territory of Russia? 2A03:D000:3001:DEB2:1:0:A4E6:2D4F (talk) 10:52, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Notability?
I am eager to find out whether this topic matters to anyone but trivia enthusiasts. Kortoso (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes.- MrX 22:44, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Top Gun: Maverick
"In the screen of the mission control center, 48°52.6'S 123°23.6'W is labeled as the coordinate of the enemy airfield. In real life, 48°52.6'S 123°23.6'W, known as Point Nemo, is a point located in the Southern Pacific ocean and officially known as "the oceanic pole of inaccessibility". It is the point in the ocean that is farthest away from any land, surrounded by more than 1,000 miles of ocean in every direction." - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745960/goofs/ - Razvan Mihaeanu

Accuracy of ISS statement
I am concerned about the accuracy of this statement:

> The area is so remote that—as with any location more than 400 kilometres (250 mi) from an inhabited area—sometimes the closest human beings are astronauts aboard the International Space Station when it passes overhead.

This statement is inaccurate because many places 400km from an inhabited area are crossed by commercial flight paths (e.g. Amazon rainforest, Greenland, Australian outback, Siberia), and commercial flights operate at much lower altitudes than the ISS, making them significantly closer to the ground.

I realize that it says “sometimes” (alluding to the fact that the ISS may not always be overhead), but the core sentence itself is misleading because in fact anywhere you’re 10km (6mi) away from an inhabited area “sometimes” the closest human beings are in an airplane above you.

I propose the removal of the aside —“as with any location more than 400 kilometres (250 mi) from an inhabited are—a because it is unnecessary and potentially misleading. My research indicates there aren’t any regular commercial airplane or shipping routes that pass within 400km from Point Nemo, so in this specific case the closest humans are sometimes those on the ISS.

A more accurate version of the statement could be:

"The area is so remote that sometimes the closest human beings are astronauts aboard the International Space Station when it passes overhead."

This revised version maintains the emphasis on the extreme remoteness of the location without introducing potentially inaccurate comparisons. Run4fun (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)