Talk:Extreme points of North America

East-West

I don't know for sure, but I've always been taught that the farthest east point is in Alaska, one of the Aleutian Islands that crosses the International Dateline. Has anybody else heard anything like this?? --Dan2119 00:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That depends on whether you use the 180th meridian as your east/west divider, as is more common, or the International Date Line, which is generally less common. But your option is already included as a footnote. Warofdreams talk 02:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

If it's less common, the Eastern Hemisphere article should be corrected: it refers to the boundaries of the eastern hemisphere as the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 02:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

With respect to Extreme Points in general there might be another nuance. Why are people asking? If is about "tourism", then one might ask the transport-geography question about what is reachable by road or train (exluding "special" modes of transport like airplanes, boats and "ATVs")?--Al 01:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.106.70 (talk)

Alaska is not the easternmost point

Using the date line or any meridian as the definition of a comparative easternmost is flawed. Think about it. If an alien came to earth, would he know anything about the Greenwich observatory? No. And using such definitions basically makes the most east and west points nearly coincide, which is just stupid. A more proper definition of easternmost point is the point at which, if you travel east, you can't stay in north America. For the contiguous continent, that's all you need to say. If we concern ourselves with Islands, then one must find the largest gap in longitude for all the extreme points of the collection. The easternmost longitude of that gap is the westernmost point on the collections of continent and islands, and vice versa. In the case of North America, the gap is obviously over Asia. 172.58.27.198 (talk) 14:17, 24 July 2022 (UTC)