Centres of Gravity
13 September 2003 – 10 December 2005
On 13 September 2003 I, Gijs Bekenkamp, and Esther Kokmeijer (24) started a journey to the centre of gravity on each continent. Rounding the globe, we have first visited the centre of gravity of Africa, then North America, South America, Oceania, Asia and finally Europe.
Jean George Affholder, geographer at the IGN (Institut Geographique National) in Paris has scientifically calculated the centre of gravity on each continent for this project. The IGN has the positions of all national borders of the world in their computer system, and claims to be highly accurate. Affholder has previously calculated the centres of gravity of all EU-states, and of he EU itself. He defines the geographic centre of a continent as the centre of the continent as a flat surface. Land mass, water and continental seas are not factored into the calculations. Instead, the continent is treated as a flat, horizontal surface, and the centre of gravity is the point on which this ‘cut-out continent’ balances.
After 455 days of travelling, visiting 45 countries and covering some eightythousand kilometres over land and sea and another twentyfive thousand kilometres by air, shooting 10.000 + photos we returned home.
Esther Kokmeijer has published a book about this project called:
