Well attestedIndirect, via a person or title
Ferro meridian
noun · first attested 17th century
For three centuries longitude was counted from the edge of the known world.
A former prime meridian running through El Hierro in the Canary Islands.
Record
- Relationship
- Indirect, via a person or title
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 17th century
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
El Hierro
- In English
Ferro meridian
Ferro is the old name for El Hierro, the westernmost of the Canaries and the last land Europeans knew of before the Atlantic. Ptolemy had put his zero at the Fortunate Isles, and a French decree of 1634 confirmed the choice; it was later defined as exactly twenty degrees west of Paris. German and Austrian maps were still printing longitudes from Ferro into the twentieth century.
Spain
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