Tongren through 1 billion years

Tongren lay at 21° north, the latitude of Jeddah today.

Farthest north.

Tongren lay at 81° north.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading south.

The Cambrian explosion

Tongren lay at 13° south, the latitude of Apia today.

Life reaches land

Tongren lay at 20° south, the latitude of Sucre today.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Tongren crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Tongren lay at 36° north, the latitude of Tehran today.

The great extinction

Tongren lay at 29° north, the latitude of Kuwait City today.

Homo sapiens

Tongren lay at 28° north, its latitude today.

Tongren today.

28° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 58,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 21° north; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 21° south; 510 million years ago
Farthest north: 81° north; 790 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 580 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 430 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 410 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 380 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 340 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.