Researchers Confirm 19,940-Mile Longest Ocean Route, Dominated by the Pacific
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · May 30
Researchers Confirm 19,940-Mile Longest Ocean Route, Dominated by the Pacific
1 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · May 30
Summary
32,090 kilometers is the longest straight-line path a vessel can sail without landfall, tracing a great-circle route from Pakistan to northeastern Russia and crossing mostly the Pacific.
2018 work by Rohan Chabukswar and Kushal Mukherjee used NOAA’s ETOPO1 topographic model to verify a route first informally suggested by Reddit user Patrick Anderson.
The line threads between Madagascar and Africa, passes the Drake Passage, then spans the Pacific basin—whose uninterrupted size makes the route possible in a way no other ocean can match.
11,241 kilometers is the longest comparable straight path on land, from eastern China to Portugal across 15 countries, underscoring how fragmented Earth’s continents are.
155 million square kilometers of Pacific Ocean—larger than all global land area combined—help explain why nearly half of Earth’s ocean surface sits in a single basin.