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Comment by 1313ed01 | original | Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)
[−]1313ed01 · 2026-08-30 Sun 10:43 UTC · link
But what would flat-earthers consider the longest possible paths to be? Not the ones shown in the article, presumably?
[−]madcaptenor · 2026-08-30 Sun 12:17 UTC · link
Over water, probably something like the entire 60th parallel south.

Over land, I think you want to start near the westernmost point of the African continent and thread the needle of the Isthmus of Suez, and stay south of the Caspian Sea. At least in the projection gcmap.com uses (plate carree - essentially the x-coordinate and y-coordinate are just raw longitude and latitude), this keeps you south of Lake Baikal and allows you to get very far east in far eastern Russia. Something like 17.5 N, 16 W to 69 N, 178.5 E seems to work:

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=17.5n16w-21.79n0.21e-26.08n16.4...

Of course this depends on the projection you use!

This is different from the Portugal-to-China path that is the longest over land in reality, which a flat-earther would have crossing the Mediterranean.

[−]Anduia · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:33 UTC · link
Flat earthers don't use Mercator projection, they use polar azimuthal equidistant (AEQD) projection centered in the north pole.

I think it would be something like Portugal-Kamchatka:

https://i.ibb.co/9mqz8fvb/image.png

[−]madcaptenor · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:55 UTC · link
I didn't know that. Makes more sense than a rectangular projection at least.
[−]1718627440 · 2026-08-30 Sun 14:01 UTC · link
> Of course this depends on the projection you use!

But if you do not believe in a globe how do you understand projections?

[−]madcaptenor · 2026-08-30 Sun 16:25 UTC · link
Well, they wouldn't call it a "projection", but whatever drawing of the map they use.
[−]Anduia · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:27 UTC · link
It would be a straight line (in their official map) from the south of Portugal to Kamchatka (east Russia)
[−]astrobe_ · 2026-08-30 Sun 15:19 UTC · link
They would tell us we are contradicting ourselves because none of them are straight lines in the traditional sense, if we really believe the Earth is a sphere. Don't underestimate trolls ;-)