What is the parallel of your hometown? Incredible map reveals the surprising cities at identical latitudes – including Edinburgh and Moscow

Most of us can place our hometown on a map, but have you ever thought about which cities are parallel?

A new map shows you the surprising places around the world that lie on the same latitude as you.

This shows that Edinburgh and Moscow are both at 56° north latitude, while Vancouver and Paris are at the same latitude of 49.3° north.

New York and Madrid are both located at 40.9° north latitude, along with Naples, Istanbul and Beijing.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Hemisphere, Buenos Aires and Perth lie parallel at 32.2°S.

“I created a super simple website where you can check which cities are on the same parallel, and also the mirrored parallel on a different hemisphere,” said X user @vicnaum, who created the map.

“You can expect the same sunlight hours there (longer nights, shorter days, etc.) and similar solar power.”

So, what is the parallel of your hometown? Use the map here to find out.

The fascinating map shows that New York, Madrid, Naples, Istanbul and Beijing are all located at 40.9°N

New York (left) and Madrid (right) are both on the same latitude, meaning they share the same length of daylight

Stunned users who tried out the card have shared their reactions online.

One person noted that they get “the same amount of sunlight as Antarctica.”

Another said: ‘When you realize at the age of 45 that Marseille and Toronto are practically on the same page.’

One user said they had “no idea Orlando and Delhi were on the same latitude.”

And someone else wrote: ‘While you’re freezing you’re in Chicago, keep in mind it’s on the same latitude as Madrid.’

Other parallel places include London and the Canadian city of Saskatoon, both of which lie at 52.1° north latitude.

Andorra, in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, is on the same latitude as Chicago.

And the vibrant Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro parallels the remote Australian city of Alice Springs.

Meanwhile, Buenos Aires and Perth in the Southern Hemisphere are parallel at 32.5°S, the map shows

Buenos Aires (left), the capital of Argentina, is a bustling metropolis with more than 16 million inhabitants. It shares a latitude with Perth, in Australia (right)

Places at the same latitude generally experience the same length of daylight on any given day.

However, they do not experience sunrise and sunset at the same time, nor do they necessarily have the same amount of actual sunshine due to weather conditions.

In general, the further you go from the equator, the more dramatic the seasonal changes in daylight hours are.

Meanwhile, the exact time of sunrise and sunset depends on how far east or west somewhere is and the local time zones.

Experts have previously revealed that the Mercator projection – the standard commercial and educational map used around the world – is seriously skewed.

On the popular map, North America and Russia are both larger than Africa, when in reality Africa is three times larger than North America and also significantly larger than Russia.

A climate data scientist at the Met Office has created a new representation to show what the world really looks like.

The updated map shows that many countries – including Russia, Canada and Greenland – are not nearly as big as we think.

Last year, African countries demanded that the ‘distorted’ world map be redrawn to reflect the true size of the continent.

The African Union (AU) has backed a campaign to end the use by governments and international organizations of the 16th-century Mercator map, in favor of a map that more accurately depicts the extent of Africa.

The 55-nation bloc has accused the map of skewed continent dimensions, making areas near the poles such as North America and Greenland larger, while Africa and South America shrink.

They argue that the distortion leads to an underestimation of the size and importance of Africa, while the scale of America and Europe is disproportionately accentuated to make them appear larger than they are.

“It may look like just a map, but in reality it is not,” Selma Malika Haddadi, vice-chairman of the AU commission, told Reuters. She said the Mercator gave the wrong impression that Africa was “marginal”, despite being the world’s second largest continent by area, with more than a billion people.

Such stereotypes influence the media, education and policy, she said. Campaigners argue that Africa’s smaller scale on the map creates damaging misconceptions about its geopolitical and economic significance.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE MERCATOR CARD?

Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland and yet both are almost the same size on the map.

Brazil is more than five times larger than Alaska, yet Alaska is larger than Brazil on the map.

The well-known ‘Mercator’ projection (photo) gives the correct shapes of landmasses, but at the cost of distorting their sizes in favor of the rich countries of the north

The map suggests that the Scandinavian countries are larger than India, when in reality India is three times the size of all the Scandinavian countries combined.

Although this map makes it look like Europe is larger than North America, in reality the opposite is true.

Russia is also not as big as it is depicted, with Africa actually being bigger than Russia.