The home page of The Degree Confluence Project touts the news, “10,000 visits posted!” A trek to 31 degrees north 39 degrees east became the ten thousandth successful degree confluence visit, primary or secondary, reported to www.confluence.org.
What does that mean? First, note that 31 degrees north 39 degrees east is a degree confluence 82.3 km from Turayf, in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia. The point was visited by Mushtaq Mahmood and AbdulMateen Moghal at the end of January 2009 as part of meeting the principal goal of the Degree Confluence Project.
Volunteers participating in the project are aiming to visit 16,194 latitude and longitude integer degree intersections on Earth, taking photographs documenting each location. The pictures, along with a narrative describing the adventures it took to get to that degree confluence are then posted at www.confluence.org. According to the founder of the project, Alex Jarrett, the hope is to create an “organized sampling of the world.” It must be mentioned that there are over 64,000 degree confluences on Earth, but not all meet the requirements of the project, which are explained in detail at the website.
Jarrett started the project in February 1996 simply because he liked the concept of using his new GPS device to visit a location represented by a round number such as 43 degrees north 72 degrees west. The exact spot where an integer degree of latitude and an integer degree of longitude meets is known as a degree confluence. Jarrett visited several degree confluences and posted the adventures to his personal website. Before long others found the site and visited confluences they selected, and the project went viral.
Approaching the end of April, the most degree confluences have been visited in the USA, followed by Russia, Australia, Canada, China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. Even though the project is not supposed to be a competition, it is clear from postings at the website that the race is on to try complete the documentation of every one of the project’s primary degree confluences in the Kingdom.
The map of Saudi Arabia (www.confluence.org/country.php?id=9) detailing the primary degree confluences, shows that most of the points are red, or documented. There are just a few brown points, which are primary degree confluences that have not yet been visited, and eight white points, which indicate incomplete reporting from a visit. From information at the site it seems that some of the incomplete degree confluence visits will be difficult to document as per the requirements of the project, due to natural or man-made barriers blocking those points.
In January 2000, Colin Irvine and Ken Long posted the first successful degree confluence visit in the Kingdom at 18 degrees north and 46 degrees east in Najran. Saudi Arabia has a total of 181 primary degree confluences for the project, with 159 complete visits logged thus far. Many of the reports and photographs of the degree confluences are impressive, showing the natural beauty of the Kingdom from coast to coast.
Anyone may participate in the project and help to document its primary degree confluences — there are over 10,700 remaining to be photographed worldwide. However, do read the project section, “Information about visiting degree confluences” before setting out, so that all requirements are met and the visit is logged as “complete.” Additionally, if you are aiming to report on one of the few unvisited primary degree confluences in Saudi Arabia, don’t be surprised if when reaching your goal, you encounter others on the same mission. Should that happen, follow mother’s advice and play nice. Smile, take a group photo and list all your names in the report.
