Participate in Wiki Loves Earth India 2016 Photo contest

Upload Photos of Natural Heritage sites of India to

help Wikipedia & win fantastic Prizes
Check out the rules here
Southern Hemisphere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the use of the term in describing the body of Earth or other
round astronomical bodies. For the use of the term describing astronomical
observations of the sky, see Southern Celestial Hemisphere.

Coordinates:

4500S 000E

A famous photo of Earth from Apollo 17 (Blue Marble) originally had the south
pole at the top; however, it was turned upside-down to fit the traditional
perspective

The Southern Hemisphere highlighted in yellow (Antarctica not depicted)

The Southern Hemisphere from above the South Pole

The Southern Hemisphere is the half sphere of Earth which is south of the equator. It
contains all or parts of five continents[1] (Antarctica, Australia, about 90% of South America,
the southern third of Africa, and several southern islands off the continental mainland of
Asia), four oceans (Indian, South Atlantic, Southern, and South Pacific) and most of the
Pacific Islands in Oceania. Due to the tilt of Earth's rotation relative to the Sun and the
ecliptic plane, summer is from December to March and winter is from June to September.
September 22 or 23 is the vernal equinox and March 20 or 21 is the autumnal equinox.
Contents

1 Geography
o

1.1 Climate

2 Demographics

3 List of continents and countries

o

3.1 Continents and microcontinents

3.2 Countries and territories

4 References

5 See also

Geography
Climate

Southern Hemisphere climates tend to be slightly milder than those at similar latitudes in the
Northern Hemisphere, except in the Antarctic which is colder than the Arctic. This is because
the Southern Hemisphere has significantly more ocean and much less land; water heats up
and cools down more slowly than land.

Aurora australis appearing in the night sky of Swifts Creek, 100 km (62 mi) north
of Lakes Entrance, Victoria, Australia

Aurora australis appearing from Stewart Island / Rakiura in the south of New
Zealand

In the Southern Hemisphere the sun passes from east to west through the north, although
north of the Tropic of Capricorn the mean sun can be directly overhead or due south at
midday. The Sun rotating through the north causes an apparent right-left trajectory through
the sky unlike the left-right motion of the Sun when seen from the Northern Hemisphere as it
passes through the southern sky. Sun-cast shadows turn counterclockwise throughout the day
and sundials have the hours increasing in the counterclockwise direction. During solar
eclipses viewed from a point to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the Moon moves from
left to right on the disc of the Sun (see, for example, photos with timings of the solar eclipse
of November 13, 2012), while viewed from a point to the north of the Tropic of Cancer
(i.e., in the Northern Hemisphere), the Moon moves from right to left during a solar eclipses.
Cyclones and tropical storms spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere (as opposed to
counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere) due to the Coriolis effect.[2]
The southern temperate zone, a subsection of the Southern Hemisphere, is nearly all oceanic.
This zone includes all of Uruguay, Lesotho, Swaziland, and New Zealand; most of Chile,
Argentina, South Africa, and Australia; and parts of Paraguay, Brazil, Namibia, Botswana,
Mozambique, and Madagascar.
The Sagittarius constellation that includes the galactic centre is a southern constellation and
this, combined with clearer skies, makes for excellent viewing of the night sky from the
Southern Hemisphere with brighter and more numerous stars.
Forests in the Southern Hemisphere have special features which set them apart from those in
the Northern Hemisphere. Both Chile and Australia share, for example, unique beech species
or Nothofagus, and New Zealand has members of the closely related genera Lophozonia and

Fuscospora. The eucalyptus is native to Australia but is now also planted in Southern Africa
and Latin America for pulp production and, increasingly, biofuel uses.
Demographics

Approximately 800,000,000 people reside in the Southern Hemisphere representing only 10

12% of the total global population of 7.3 billion.[3][4]
List of continents and countries
Continents and microcontinents

Africa (approximately one third, from south of Libreville in Gabon in the

west to south of Somalia in the east)

Antarctica

Asia (the very southern island portion including East Timor, most of
Indonesia and a few islets of the Maldives)

Australia (the entire mainland is in the Southern Hemisphere)

South America (mostly, south of the Amazon River mouth in the east and
Quito in the west)

Zealandia (New Caledonia, the New Zealand landmass and associated

islands are wholly within the Southern Hemisphere)

Countries and territories

Africa
Entirely

Angola

Botswana

Burundi

Comoros

Lesotho

Madagascar

Malawi

Mauritius

Mayotte (France)

Mozambique

Namibia

Runion (France)

Rwanda

Seychelles

South Africa

Swaziland

Tanzania

Zambia

Zimbabwe

Mostly

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Gabon

Republic of the Congo

Partly

Equatorial Guinea

Kenya

So Tom and Prncipe

Somalia

Uganda

References
1.
"Hemisphere Map". WorldAtlas. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
"Surface Ocean Currents". National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. Retrieved 13 June 2014.

 "90% Of People Live In The Northern Hemisphere - Business Insider".

Business Insider. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
"GIC - Article". galegroup.com. Retrieved 10 November 2015.

1.
See also

Media related to Southern Hemisphere at Wikimedia Commons

[hide]

Hemispheres of the Earth

Northern Hemisphere

Southern Hemisphere

Eastern Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

Land and water hemispheres

Book:Hemispheres of the Earth

Portal:Geography

Commons:Maps of Earth's hemispheres

Categories:

Hemispheres of the Earth

Navigation menu

Not logged in

Talk

Contributions

Create account

Log in

Article

Talk

Read

Edit

View history

Main page

Contents

Featured content

Current events

Random article

Donate to Wikipedia

Wikipedia store

Interaction

Help

About Wikipedia

Community portal

Recent changes

Contact page

Tools

What links here

Related changes

Upload file

Special pages

Permanent link

Page information

Wikidata item

Cite this page

Print/export

Create a book

Download as PDF

Printable version

In other projects

Wikimedia Commons

Languages

Afrikaans

nglisc

Asturianu

Azrbaycanca

Bn-lm-g

()

Bosanski

Brezhoneg

Catal

etina

ChiShona

Dansk

Deutsch

Eesti

Espaol

Esperanto

Euskara

Franais

Frysk

Galego

Hrvatski

Ilokano

Bahasa Indonesia

slenska

Italiano

Kurd

Latina

Latvieu

Ltzebuergesch

Lietuvi

Magyar

Bahasa Melayu

Nederlands

Nedersaksies

Norsk bokml

Norsk nynorsk

Polski

Portugus

Romn

Sardu

Scots

Shqip

Simple English

Slovenina

Slovenina

/ srpski

Srpskohrvatski /

Basa Sunda

Suomi

Svenska

Tagalog

/tatara

Trke

Ting Vit

Winaray

Edit links

This page was last modified on 5 May 2016, at 19:10.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike

License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of
the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Privacy policy

About Wikipedia

Disclaimers

Contact Wikipedia

Developers

Cookie statement

Mobile view