Meridian Room (or Cassini Room) at the Paris Observatory. The Paris Meridian is traced on the floor.

The Paris Meridian is a meridian line running through Paris, now longitude 2°20′14.025″ east. It was a long-standing rival to Greenwich as the prime meridian of the world. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (960x1280, 230 KB) Salle Méridienne (dite salle Cassini), Observatoire de Paris File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Paris Observatory Paris Meridian Metadata This file contains additional... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (960x1280, 230 KB) Salle Méridienne (dite salle Cassini), Observatoire de Paris File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Paris Observatory Paris Meridian Metadata This file contains additional... gros pd]], enfoire at Nançay. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Location Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country France Region ÃŽle-de-France Department Paris (75) Subdivisions 20 arrondissements Mayor Bertrand Delanoë  (PS) (since 2001) City Statistics Land area¹ 86. ... Greenwich (pronounced grenn-itch , or by the locals) is a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the River Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. ... Location of the Prime Meridian Prime Meridian in Greenwich The Prime Meridian, also known as the International Meridian or Greenwich Meridian, is the meridian (line of longitude) passing through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England — it is the meridian at which longitude is 0 degrees. ...

Origin

In the year 1634, France ruled by Louis XIII and Richelieu decided that Ferro's meridian should be used as the reference on maps, since this island is the most western position of the Old World and also thought to be exactly 20 degrees west of Paris, so indeed the exact position of Ferro was never considered. Events Moses Amyrauts Traite de la predestination is published Curaçao captured by the Dutch Treaty of Polianovska First meeting of the Académie française The witchcraft affair at Loudun Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay, Wisconsin Opening of Covent Garden Market in London English establish a settlement... Louis XIII (September 27, 1601 – May 14, 1643), called the Just (French: le Juste), was King of France from 1610 to 1643. ... For other uses of Richelieu, see Richelieu (disambiguation). ... Hierro redirects here. ... The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively known as Africa-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Location Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country France Region ÃŽle-de-France Department Paris (75) Subdivisions 20 arrondissements Mayor Bertrand Delanoë  (PS) (since 2001) City Statistics Land area¹ 86. ...

A French astronomer, Abbé Jean Picard, measured the length of a degree of longitude and computed from it the size of the Earth during 1669-1670. In 1666, Louis XIV of France authorized the building of an observatory in Paris to measure longitude. On Midsummer's Day 1667, members of the Academy of Sciences traced the future building's outline on a plot outside town near the Port Royal abbey, with Picard's meridian exactly bisecting the site north-south. French cartographers would use it as their prime meridian for more than 200 years. Jean-Felix Picard (July 21, 1620 – July 12, 1682) was a French astronomer and priest born in La Fleche. ... Longitude, sometimes denoted by the Greek letter λ (lambda),[1][2] describes the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north-south line called the Prime Meridian. ... // Events Samuel Pepys stopped writing his diary. ... 1670 was a common year beginning on a Saturday in countries using the Julian calendar and a Wednesday in countries using the Gregorian calendar. ... 1666 is often called Annus Mirabilis. ... Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) ruled as King of France and of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death just prior to his seventy-seventh birthday. ... MolÄ—tai Astronomical Observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events. ... gros pd]], enfoire at Nançay. ... Illumination of Earth by the sun on the northern hemisphere summer solstice The summer solstice is an astronomical term regarding the position of the sun in relation to the celestial equator. ... // Events January 20 - Poland cedes Kyiv, Smolensk, and eastern Ukraine to Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo that put a final end to the Deluge, and Poland lost its status as a Central European power. ...

Old maps (outside of Anglo-America) often have a common grid with Paris degrees at the top and Ferro degrees offset by 20 at the bottom. Louis Feuillée also worked on this problem in 1724. It was later found that the actual island of El Hierro itself is in fact 20° 23' 9" west of Paris, but the Ferro meridian was still defined as 20 degrees west of Paris. Louis Éconches Feuillée (sometimes spelled Feuillet) (1660-1732) was a French member of the Order of the Minims, explorer, astronomer, geographer, and botanist. ... Events January 14 - King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne February 20 - The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London June 23 - Treaty of Constantinople signed. ...

In the early 1800s, the Paris Meridian was recalculated with greater precision by the astronomer Francois Arago, whose name now appears on the plaques or medallions tracing the route of the meridian though Paris (see below). François Jean Dominique Arago (February 26, 1786 – October 2, 1853) was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and politician. ...

In 1884, at the International Meridian Conference in Washington DC, the Greenwich Meridian was adopted as the prime meridian of the world. France abstained. The French clung to the Paris Meridian as a rival to Greenwich until 1911 for timekeeping purposes and 1914 for navigation. To this day, French cartographers continue to indicate the Paris Meridian on some maps. 1884 (MDCCCLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Tuesday (click on link to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The Prime Meridian, Greenwich The Prime Meridian is the meridian (line of longitude) passing through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England; it is the meridian at which longitude is 0 degrees. ... Flag Seal Nickname: DC, The District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Location Location of Washington, D.C., with regard to the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia. ... Location of the Prime Meridian Prime Meridian in Greenwich The Prime Meridian, also known as the International Meridian or Greenwich Meridian, is the meridian (line of longitude) passing through the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England — it is the meridian at which longitude is 0 degrees. ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

The Arago medallions

One of the 135 Arago medaillons. This one is located near the Louvre Pyramid.

In 1994 the Arago Association and the city of Paris commissioned a Dutch conceptual artist, Jan Dibbets, to create a memorial to Arago. Dibbets came up with the idea of setting 135 bronze medallions (although interestingly only 120 are documented in the official guide to the medallions) into the ground along the Paris Meridian between the northern and southern limits of Paris: a total distance of 9.2 kilometers / 5.7 miles. Each medallion is 12 cm in diameter and marked with the name ARAGO plus N and S pointers. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 687 KB) Description: One of the 135 medallions from the Hommage à Arago monument in Paris scattered along the Paris meridian in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 9th, 14th and 18th Source: photographed in 2005 File links The following pages on the... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 687 KB) Description: One of the 135 medallions from the Hommage à Arago monument in Paris scattered along the Paris meridian in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 9th, 14th and 18th Source: photographed in 2005 File links The following pages on the... Louvre courtyard Louvre Pyramid is the large glass pyramid at the front of the Louvre museum in Paris. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... François Arago François Jean Dominique Arago (February 26, 1786 – October 2, 1853) was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and politician. ...

Another project, the so-called Green Meridian ('An 2000 — La Méridienne Verte'), aims to establish a plantation of trees along the entire length of the meridian in France.

Esoteric interpretations

In certain circles, some kind of occult or esoteric significance is ascribed to the Paris Meridian; sometimes it is even perceived as a sinister axis. Dominique Stezepfandts, a French conspiracy theorist, attacks the Arago medallions that supposedly trace the route of "an occult geographical line"; to him the Paris Meridian is a "Masonic axis" or even "the heart of the Devil."

Henry Lincoln, in his book The Holy Place, argues that various ancient structures are aligned according to the Paris Meridian. They even include medieval churches, built long before the meridian was established according to conventional history, and Lincoln finds it obvious that the meridian "was based upon the 'cromlech intersect division line'." David Wood, in his book Genisis, likewise ascribes a deeper significance to the Paris Meridian and takes it into account when trying to decipher the geometry of the myth-encrusted village of Rennes-le-Château: The meridian passes about 350 meters (yards) west of the site of the so-called "Poussin tomb," an important location in the legends and esoteric theories relating to that place. (A skeptical discussion of these theories, including the supposed "alignments," can be found in Bill Putnam and Edwin Wood's book The Treasure of Rennes-le-Château - A mystery solved.) Henry Lincoln is the pseudonym of Henry Soskin, a writer born 1930 in London. ... Rennes-le-Château is a medieval castle village and a commune in the Aude département, in the Languedoc area in southern France. ... Et in Arcadia ego is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). ...

The Paris Meridian also turns up in Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, where it is referred to as the "Rose Line" and presented as "the world's first prime meridian" (p. 106). Actually the idea of establishing a prime meridian dates back to antiquity, with suggested meridians running through Rhodes or the Canary Islands. When Greenwich was adopted as the universal zero longitude in 1884 (not 1888 as the novel says), it had at least nine rivals besides Paris (Berlin, Cadiz, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Rio, Rome, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, and Tokyo). Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for writing the controversial 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. ... This article is about the novel. ... Berlin is the capital city and one of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany. ... This article is about the Spanish city. ... Copenhagen (IPA: , rhyming with pagan (the way the Danes themselves pronounce the name of the capital in English), or , with a as in spa; Danish   IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city (metropolitan population 1,211,542 (2006)). It is also the name of the... Location    - Country Portugal    - Region Lisbon  - Subregion Grande Lisboa  - District or A.R. Lisbon Mayor Carmona Rodrigues  - Party PSD Area 84. ... Location of Rio de Janeiro Coordinates: Country Brazil Region Southeast State Rio de Janeiro Mayor Cesar Maia (PFL) Area    - City 1,260 km² Population    - City (2005) 5,613,000 [1]  - Density 4,781/km²  - Metro 11,620,000 [2] Time zone UTC-3 (UTC-3) Website: www. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1,500 km²  (580 sq mi... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and...   (IPA: ; UN/LOCODE: SE STO) is the capital of Sweden, and consequently the site of its Government and Parliament as well as the residence of the Swedish head of state, King Carl XVI Gustaf. ... Tokyo , literally Eastern capital)   is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, the home of the Japanese Imperial Family, and the de facto[1] capital of Japan. ...

Brown's novel confuses the Paris Meridian with a local meridian found in the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice, marked in the floor with a brass line (the Paris Meridian actually passes about 100 meters east of it). At the climax of the novel, the protagonist follows the line of Arago medallions to the Louvre museum, where (according to the book) the Paris Meridian passes beneath the so-called Inverted Pyramid in an underground mall in front of the museum. Following the tradition of esoteric interpretations of this meridian, the novel hints that this is the final resting place of the Holy Grail. The fact that the meridian passes near the Inverted Pyramid is also noted in the book Le guide du Paris maçonnique by Raphäel Aurillac, who likewise ascribes some deeper, esoteric significance to this. (See: La Pyramide Inversée.) The interior of the Church Saint-Sulpice () is a famous Parisian church on the east side of the Place Saint-Sulpice, in the Luxembourg Quarter of the VIe arrondissement. ... The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is the largest, oldest, most important and famous art gallery and museum in the world. ... In Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers. ... The Inverted Pyramide La Pyramide Inversée (The Inverted Pyramid) is a skylight constructed in an underground shopping mall in front of the Louvre Museum in France. ...

In the Louvre area, the meridian line marked by the Arago medallions actually runs through the museum and the great courtyard at a spot considerably to the east of the Inverted Pyramid. The medallions in the museum are behind ticketed access points, while the Inverted Pyramid is located in a public mall next to the museum.

In popular culture

The difference between the Paris and the Greenwich meridians is a plot element in Tintin's Red Rackham's Treasure. The main cast of the series. ... Red Rackhams Treasure (Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge) is one of a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. ...

External links

• The Invisible Monument: a short description of the Arago Monument, including a picture.
• Paris Meridian / Arago Medallions: details about the Arago Medallion route, including GPS data]
• Hommage à Arago de Jan Dibbets: official guide to the Arago Medallions.
• The Arago medallions on Google Earth