April 9, 2018 at 11:44 am

The Stadium Built on the Equator, Where Each Team Defends a Hemisphere

by twistedsifter

stadium built on equator where each team defends a hemisphere 2 The Stadium Built on the Equator, Where Each Team Defends a Hemisphere

Photograph by Greenleaf Gramados

 

In the northern city of Macapá, Brazil you will find Zerão, a famous football field known in English as, ‘the Big Zero’. Opened in 1990, the stadium was designed so the midfield line fell exactly on the Equator, meaning each half lies on a different hemisphere.

Although its official name is Estádio Milton de Souza Corrêa, everyone calls it Zerão. According to CN Traveler:

Macapá is perhaps the most remote of Brazil’s 26 state capitals. Located between a vast rainforest and the banks of the Amazon River, it’s actually separated by the sprawling Amazon delta from the rest of the nation. There is no highway connecting Macapá, a city of some half a million people, to any other state of Brazil.

 

Nearby is another of the city’s foremost attractions, the Marco Zero monument, a 100-foot-tall concrete sundial that marks the imaginary line that separates the Northern from the Southern Hemisphere. There’s even a circular hole through the top of the sundial, so when the sun sets on the spring and fall equinoxes, a sun-shaped orb moves due east down the avenue, tracing the Equator. [source]

 

stadium built on equator where each team defends a hemisphere 3 The Stadium Built on the Equator, Where Each Team Defends a Hemisphere

 

stadium built on equator where each team defends a hemisphere 1 The Stadium Built on the Equator, Where Each Team Defends a Hemisphere