Il est appellé Monument équateurial pour sa forme pyramidale - cuadrangulaire correspondant aux quatre points cardinaux, et est situé au centre de la ligne de l'équateur, à la fameuse latitude : 0°0'0".
Certes, cette ligne traverse de nombreux pays de la planète, mais un seul pays en porte le nom : La République de l'Équateur.
En haut de cette pyramide, se trouve une sphère symbolisant la terre avec ses 5 continents et ses mers et océans, tout cela en relief. Cette sphère est entourée d'Est en Ouest par une ceinture métalique représentant la ligne de l'équateur. Son orientation à la cîme de ce monument corespond à l'orientation exacte de la Terre. Cette pyramide protège en son coeur, le musée d'Ethnologie et permet d'accéder au mirador de cet ouvrage.
Ce monument a ete cree par le geographe Tufiño pour comemorer les 200 ans de l'arrivee de la mission francaise en cette terre du milieu (et oui ceux sont des francais qui ont decouvert le milieu du monde!!!)
Le reste du village est rempli de magasins souvenirs, de restaurants, de musees, d'une arene et d'une eglise!
Today is a great day cause we are going to the Mital del Mundo, the Middle of the world!
The Mitad del Mundo (Spanish: Middle of the World) is a tract of land owned by the prefecture of the province of Pichincha, Ecuador. It is located in the San Antonio parish of the canton of Quito, north of the center of Quito.
The grounds contain the Museo Etnográfico Mitad del Mundo, a museum about the indigenous ethnography of Ecuador. The 30-meter-tall monument, built between 1979 and 1982, was constructed to mark the point where the equator passes through the country in the geodetic datum in use in Ecuador at that time. A line down the center of the east-facing staircase, and across the plaza, was meant to mark the equator, and countless tourists over the years have had their pictures taken straddling this line. In the modern datum of the World Geodetic System (WGS84), which is used in GPS systems and computer mapping products like Google Earth, the equator is placed about 240 meters north of the marked line. This discrepancy is partially due to increased accuracy but primarily due to a different choice of mapping datum. Similarly, the line marking the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in England is roughly 100 meters from the exact zero of longitude as indicated by GPS receivers.
The pyramidal monument, with each side facing a cardinal direction, is topped by a 4.5 meter diameter, 5-ton globe. Inside the monument is a small museum that displays elements of indigenous Ecuadorian culture, such as clothing, descriptions of the various ethnic groups, and examples of their activities. Mitad del Mundo contains other attractions such as a Planetarium, an amazing miniature model of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and restaurants. On weekends, Mitad del Mundo's Central Plaza is host to varied musical and cultural presentations for tourists.
A small town surrounding the monument at the Museo Etnográfico functions as the tourist center, replicating a colonial Spanish town and called "Ciudad Mitad del Mundo" (Middle of the World City).
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire