Zhaoqing through 1 billion years

Zhaoqing lay at 25° north, the latitude of Prayagraj today.

Farthest north.

Zhaoqing lay at 84° north.

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading south.

The Cambrian explosion

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

Life reaches land

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

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading north.

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading south.

Zhaoqing crosses the equator.

Heading north.

The first dinosaurs

Zhaoqing lay at 33° north, the latitude of Baghdad today.

The great extinction

Zhaoqing lay at 25° north, the latitude of Prayagraj today.

Homo sapiens

Zhaoqing lay at 23° north, its latitude today.

Zhaoqing today.

23° north. In 1 billion years the plates have carried it some 57,000 kilometres.

latitude through time

Oldest position in the model: 25° north; 1 billion years ago
Farthest south: 16° south; 510 million years ago
Farthest north: 84° 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: 380 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 350 million years ago
Crossed the equator: 310 million years ago
Distance travelled: 57,000 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.