Qingyuan through 1 billion years

Qingyuan lay at 26° north, the latitude of Prayagraj today.

Farthest north.

Qingyuan lay at 85° north.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading south.

The Cambrian explosion

Qingyuan lay at 9° south, the latitude of Luanda today.

Life reaches land

Qingyuan lay at 14° south, the latitude of Lilongwe today.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Qingyuan crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Qingyuan lay at 34° north, the latitude of Rabat today.

The great extinction

Qingyuan lay at 26° north, the latitude of Manama today.

Homo sapiens

Qingyuan lay at 24° north, its latitude today.

Qingyuan today.

24° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 58,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 26° north; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 15° south; 510 million years ago
Farthest north: 85° north; 790 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 570 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 440 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 410 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 390 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 350 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 320 million years ago
Distance travelled: 58,000 kilometres; 1 billion 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.