Kuwait City through 600 million years

Kuwait City lay at 5° north, the latitude of Juba today.

The Cambrian explosion

Kuwait City lay at 42° south, the latitude of Wellington today.

Farthest south.

Kuwait City lay at 58° south.

Life reaches land

Kuwait City lay at 53° south.

The first dinosaurs

Kuwait City lay at 10° south, the latitude of Luanda today.

Kuwait City crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Kuwait City crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Kuwait City crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The great extinction

Kuwait City lay at 9° north, the latitude of Freetown today.

Homo sapiens

Kuwait City lay at 29° north, its latitude today.

Kuwait City today.

29° north. In 600 million years the plates have carried it some 29,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 5° north; 600 million years ago
Farthest south: 58° south; 500 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 590 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 210 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 180 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 110 million years ago
Distance travelled: 29,000 kilometres; 600 million years

other places

Positions come from the plate model of Merdith and colleagues (2021), through the GPlates Web Service of the EarthByte Group at the University of Sydney. The globe shows today's coastlines carried back with their plates, not the shorelines of the time, so it does not say whether a place was land or sea. Cities and their coordinates come from Wikidata.