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What's the 10-letter answer to this puzzle?


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1 Answer 1

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The 10-letter answer is:

NULL ISLAND. This is the name given to the location on Earth at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude, where the prime meridian intersects with the equator, in the Gulf of Guinea (there is no physical island there though!).

Null Island on a map
Source: Wikipedia

To find this, interpret the images as follows:

1. The circle is a basic representation of the Earth.

2. The horizontal line passes through 13 letters: ECBSGRDUKSMIK. These correspond to the starting letters of the 13 countries through which Earth's equator passes, in order from west to east (on a typical map of the world centred on the prime meridian):

Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati.

3. The vertical line passes through 8 letters: UFSAMBTG. These correspond to the starting letters of the 8 countries through which the prime meridian passes, in order from north to south:

United Kingdom, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana.

4. The cross shape with a red dot at the centre suggests identifying the point where these two lines meet on the globe, with longitude and latitude (0,0). This is the theoretical point known as NULL ISLAND! (This spot has been 'given a special name' largely to help mapping software developers to find and correct database entries that have erroneously been assigned the coordinates (0,0)...)

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  • $\begingroup$ You got it, nice job! Also, notice they're in order from W to E, N to S. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 13:13
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    $\begingroup$ @Prim3numbah Indeed. In fact - though I didn't mention it - that was what twigged it for me. When trying to think what U, F, S... stood for I drew a line in my mind and then continued it onwards to realise all the rest fit! I have heard of this concept before, and even have a still-uncompleted puzzle about it in my stash; maybe it will see the light of day one day :) $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Jul 11 at 13:15
  • $\begingroup$ Nice :) I was even thinking about leaving the circle image out, replacing it with some form of other image, to make it harder. So yeah, I had a feeling it would be solved pretty fast. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 11 at 13:24

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