Ecuador Travel

Middle of the World

Middle of the World

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Ecuador's name comes from its location on the equator. Ecuador is the Spanish word for equator, the imaginary line that divides the Earth's northern and southern hemispheres.

During Spanish rule, Ecuador was first known as the Viceroyalty of Peru, and then later as the Viceroyalty of Grenada. The Spanish frequently referred to the region as the Territory of Quito or officially as the Royal Audience of Quito.. Following independence in 1822, it became a member of Gran Colombia with Colombia and Venezuela before becoming the Republic of Ecuador in 1830.

Around the mid-18th century, a geodesic mission of French scientists, led by Louis Godin, took place in what is now Ecuador. The purpose of the expedition was to measure the roundness of the Earth. This expedition is believed to be a significant influence on the naming of Ecuador. In one version of this story, the leader of the scientific expedition grew tired of writing “Viceroyalty of Peru,” in his reports back to France, and so he started referring to it as Ecuador.

By 1735, there was no longer any question that the Earth was round. However, it was believed that the Earth was not a perfect sphere and that it bulged slightly in the middle along the equator and was flatter at the poles.

The French Academy of Sciences questioned whether the earth's circumference was greater around the equator or at the poles, and sent two expedition teams to find out. One team went to Lapland, near the Arctic circle, and the other went to the Viceroyalty of Peru. Each team was to measure one degree of latitude. The reasoning was that if the degree in one region was larger than the other's, the Earth bulged at the equator. The missions had more at stake than just settling a point of contention; measurements were crucial to mapping and navigation, as navigational charts that were off by a few degrees could send ships hundreds of kilometers off course.

The expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru was known as the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission (Geodesic Mission to Peru or First Geodesic Mission). It was the first major organized scientific expedition to South America. The inaccessibility of other locations along the equator such as the Amazon basin, southeast Asia and the north of Africa made the Viceroyalty of Peru an excellent location to perform the survey.

The French Academy of Sciences assembled a team that included Louis Godin, Pierre Bouguer and Charles-Marie La Condamine, who would become the leader of the group. They were accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, including a doctor/botanist, a surgeon, a naval engineer, and a draftsman. Two representatives of the Spanish crown joined the group, with the secretive task of reporting the group's findings and the state of the Spanish territories to the Spanish king.

In 1735, the team landed on the Caribbean coast of Colombia at Cartagena. They then traveled overland to the Pacific coast, from where they departed for the Territory of Peru. In March, 1736, they arrived at the port of Manta, and then traveled to Quito, where they were openly received. Pedro Vicente Maldonado Palomino, an Ecuadorian mapmaker and mathematician, was selected to join the expedition.

In order to make accurate measurements, the area of Yaruqui nearly 20 kilometers north of Quito was chosen. Godin, Bouguer and La Condamine and the team measured degrees of latitude of the earth's curvature.

The expedition was beset with a host of misfortunes, from fighting amongst the group leaders due to personality conflicts to the team members being ill-equipped for the altitude and cold weather. The surgeon, Juan Seniergues, was killed. The botanist lost five years' worth of plants he had collected. The draftsman died. Locals also suspected that the team was trying to dig up and steal Inca gold, which led to a sidetrip to Lima to secure support from the Viceroy. In 1737, the team members who had gone to Lima returned with signed papers supporting their work.

In 1739, the work was nearly done, when word came that the Lapland expedition had been completed and that land was flat at the poles, thus proving that the Earth bulged at the equator. The equatorial team completed their measurements in 1743, and although the team finished second to the Arctic team, the scientists' measurements became the basis for the modern metric system.

A stone pyramid-like structure was erected on the equator at what is now San Antonio de Pichincha. The Spanish accused La Condamine of purposely omitting the names of the two Spaniards from plaques on the structure. In 1936, which was the 200th anniversary of the expedition's arrival in Ecuador, the pyramid was replaced by the 100-foot trapezoidal monument topped by a brass globe that now straddles the equatorial line (it is, in fact, incorrectly positioned). There are also busts of the team members, 10 French, 2 Spanish and the lone Ecuadorian. The busts and the monument can be seen during a visit to the Mitad del Mundo.

Following the survey, some team members remained in Ecuador to make astronomical observations. Bouger traveled overland to the Caribbean and returned home. La Condamine and Maldonado traveled down the Amazon River on their way back to France. Godin became a professor in Lima before returning to Europe years later. Various team members wrote accounts of the expedition, revealing South America to Europeans, and which led to future expeditions to the continent.