Vientiane through 410 million years

Vientiane lay at 5° south, the latitude of Victoria today.

Vientiane crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Vientiane crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Vientiane crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Vientiane lay at 24° north, the latitude of Liuzhou today.

Farthest north.

Vientiane lay at 47° north.

The great extinction

Vientiane lay at 20° north, the latitude of Naypyidaw today.

Homo sapiens

Vientiane lay at 18° north, its latitude today.

Vientiane today.

18° north. In 410 million years the plates have carried it some 23,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 5° south; 410 million years ago
Farthest south: 8° south; 400 million years ago
Farthest north: 47° north; 200 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 370 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 260 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 250 million years ago
Distance travelled: 23,000 kilometres; 410 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.