Living at the 45th parallel north

45th parallel: Just two markers make note of this Minneapolis distinction

Comment: My wife was born (at home mind you!) at the 45th parallel north (Google Maps image of her birth home in Mattoon WI) and we now live at the 45th parallel north in Plymouth (screen shot of my IPhone Compass with the Longitude boxed out in yellow)

Excerpt:

Here is a somewhat dubious superlative for the city of Minneapolis, suitable for any boostering or anecdotal purposes: It is the largest city in North America to be located exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, right on the 45th parallel. Minneapolis (population 400,700, despite what the signs on the freeway say) would be the largest such city in the world, but unfortunately, there are two Eurasian cities with larger populations also crossed by the line. The 45th parallel runs near a commemorative obelisk in the Piazza Statuo in Turin, Italy (population 908,551), and then through an industrial park on the very southernmost tip of the Russian city of Krasnodar (population 744,995). But biggest in North America’s not bad. The 45th parallel is the imaginary circle of latitude bisecting the Northern Hemisphere, 45 degrees north of the Equator and another 45 degrees from the North Pole. In the Twin Cities, the 45th parallel runs through the western suburbs, over Medicine Lake, then through Golden Valley and North Minneapolis, running just a few yards south of 21st Avenue North. It crosses the Mississippi into Northeast Minneapolis, almost exactly halfway between 12th and 13th Avenues Northeast, then Roseville, Lake Elmo, and finally across the St. Croix into Wisconsin and points east – Michigan, Vermont, France, Croatia, the Crimea, Inner Mongolia, Hokkaido in northern Japan, the Kuril Islands, Oregon, the Montana/Wyoming border, and back again through Plymouth.

Comment: Other images from the Wikipedia article.

The 45th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 45 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean. The 45th parallel north is often called the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole, but the true halfway point is actually 16.2 kilometres (10.1 mi) north of the 45th parallel because the Earth is oblate, that is, it bulges at the equator and is flattened at the poles. At this latitude the sun is visible for 15 hours, 37 minutes during the summer solstice and 8 hours, 46 minutes during the winter solstice. The midday sun stands 21.6 degrees above the southern horizon at the December solstice, 68.4 degrees at the June solstice, and exactly 45.0 degrees at the two equinoxes