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Sign marking the 100th meridian in Cozad, Nebraska

The meridian 100° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.

Starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the 100th meridian west passes through:

Country, territory or sea	Notes
Arctic Ocean
Canada	Islands of Meighen, Ellef Ringnes, Bathurst and Prince of Wales - all in Nunavut Mainland of Nunavut Manitoba
United States	North Dakota 47°30′N 100°00′W / 47.5, -100 South Dakota 44°30′N 100°00′W / 44.5, -100 Nebraska 41°30′N 100°00′W / 41.5, -100 Kansas 41°30′N 100°00′W / 41.5, -100 Oklahoma 36°45′N 100°00′W / 36.75, -100 Texas / Oklahoma border 35°30′N 100°00′W / 35.5, -100 Texas 31°30′N 100°00′W / 31.5, -100
Mexico	Coahuila Nuevo León Tamaulipas San Luis Potosí Tamaulipas San Luis Potosí Guanajuato Querétaro Mexico State Guerrero
Pacific Ocean
Southern Ocean
Antarctica	Unclaimed territory

United States

In the United States the meridian 100° west of Greenwich forms the eastern border of the Texas panhandle with Oklahoma (which traces its origin to the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819 which settled the border between New Spain and the United States between the Red River and Arkansas River).

In the central Great Plains, the meridian roughly marks the western boundary of the normal reach of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. The type of agriculture west of the meridian typically relies heavily on irrigation. Historically the meridian has often been taken as a rough boundary between the eastern and western United States. White settlement, spreading westward after the American Civil War, encroached in the meridian in the 1870s.

A sign across U.S. Highway 30 in Cozad, Nebraska prominently marks the place where the meridian intersects the routes of the Oregon Trail, Pony Express, transcontinental railroad, and the Lincoln Highway.

Wallace Stegner's Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (1954), is a biography of John Wesley Powell, an explorer of the American West. The song "At the Hundredth Meridian" by The Tragically Hip is about the 100th meridian west, specifically in Canada, and how it has traditionally been considered "where the great plains begin."

See also

• Rain follows the plow

External Links

• [1], 100th meridian west at MSN maps

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 3 January 2009, at 17:32.

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