Digging Through the Planet: The Geography of Antipodes

Digging Through the Planet: The Geography of Antipodes

From Sketchplanations - The Podcast by Bell Boy Productions

February 24, 2026 · 17 min · Season 5 · Episode 10

About this episode

This episode explores the concept of antipodes and the geographic facts surrounding them.

Have you ever wondered what's happening on the exact opposite side of the world to you? Wherever you are on our planet, there's a good chance you'd need a snorkel. In this episode, we explore the concept of antipodes —the exact point on the opposite side of Earth from wherever you're standing. We discover why most antipodes end up in the ocean rather than on land and cover a whole host of fascinating geographic facts, including how the Northern Hemisphere contains the vast majority of Earth's land and population, how map projections distort our view of the planet, and why Earth's oblate spheroid shape means some antipode distances are longer than others. Along the way, we also raise the big questions like how deep have humans ever dug into Earth and how long it would take to fall through a frictionless tunnel to your antipode. External Links and mentions on the show: Jono's sketch that explains the Mercator Map Projection Jono references the Antipodal Map in the book Marvellous Maps by  Simon Kuestenmacher The 7.6 mile deep hole Jono talks about is the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia, initiated by Soviet scientists in 1970, primarily to better understand the earth’s…

People in this episode

Host: Jono

Topics covered

  • geography
  • antipodes
  • map projections
  • Earth's structure
  • ocean vs land distribution

Keywords

  • antipodes
  • geography
  • map projections
  • Kola Superdeep Borehole
  • Earth's crust

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bell Boy Productions

Books & works: Marvellous Maps

Places: Kola Superdeep Borehole, Russia, AntipodeMap.com

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