El
Hierro - "Isla de Meridiano"
In
1634 the zero meridian was established on El Hierro, when El Hierro was
the end of the known world. In 1884 as a consequence of the International
Meridian Conference in Washington D.C. it moved to Greenwich (although
Paris did not recognize it for a further 27 years). The old zero meridian
does not seem to be widely known or celebrated, a guide book told us we
could get a certificate to show we had been there, but there didn't seem
to be a representative of the government on hand to hand them out! In fact
most maps do not even show where the monument is and an all terrain vehicle
is needed to reach it.