Geographical pole

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
Please help recruit one or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details.
Please consider using {{Expert-subject}} to associate this request with a WikiProject

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (June 2007)

For other uses, see Pole (disambiguation).

A geographical pole, or geographic pole, is either of two fixed points on the surface of a spinning body or planet, at 90 degrees from the equator, based on the axis around which a body spins. For the purposes of cartography, it provides an agreed upon absolute point of measurement. These should not be confused with magnetic poles, which can also exist on a planet.

For the geographic poles on Earth, see:

North Pole South Pole

The hypothetical East and West Poles, which do not exist due to the spherical coordinate system used to identify places on Earth, are occasionally mentioned as thought to exist by children. For example, in Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin mentions, "I expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them." [1]

For geographic poles on planets and other astronomical bodies, see Poles of astronomical bodies.