What is the earliest mention of an estimate of 71% water (or 70.8%) / 29% land (or 29.2%)?
score:5
Accepted answer
After looking at lots of atlases and physical geography books on the internet archive, the first mention I found of 70.8% water and 29.2% land is in the German Knaurs WELT-ATLAS, 1932 edition.
Even more precise numbers are given by the book Mother Earth by T. A. Ryder in 1930 (so published two years earlier). It says 70.78% water and 29.22% land.
Most books between 1924 and 1932 don't give an exact number, they just say something like 'nearly or almost three fourths of the earth's surface is covered in water'.
It looks like some authors were behind current knowledge (or maybe the editions weren't updated?). For example, one book after 1930 says 72.5% water and 27.5% land (Earth Lore A Physical Geography, 1932).
I haven't found anything close to your numbers before 1930, but the 1924 edition of Bartholomew's The handy reference atlas of the world gives areas which work out at 71.8% water and 28.2% land.
More post
- 📝 When the United States Congress passes an amendment, how are its votes counted?
- 📝 How did public debt financing through annuities work in the States General of the Netherlands?
- 📝 What was the efficiency of the "Gadget" bomb in the Trinity Test?
- 📝 Why was James II and VII (same person), the last Roman Catholic monarch of Britain, not forced to convert to Anglicanism?
- 📝 Is limestone robbed out from pyramids ever seen in local use?
- 📝 Gaulish logistics during Caesar's invasion
- 📝 Why did Great Britain switch its alliance to France?
- 📝 In 1700-1900 England, how were 'manners an end in themselves and not merely a means to achieve propriety by conformity'?
- 📝 When was the first electrical intra-battlefield communication?
- 📝 Why do people in Melbourne Victoria Australia get a public holiday for a horse race
- 📝 Class-conscious, non-Marxist historiographies
- 📝 Is there any science behind this graph that suggests we'd be exploring new galaxies if not for the dark ages?
- 📝 Have there been "mechanical paintings" in real life?
- 📝 What is the relationship (if any) between Skøyen and Skøyenåsen in Oslo?
- 📝 Did ancient or medieval warriors "substitute" in and out of combat?
- 📝 What really happen to 100k people in Changban?
- 📝 How did sailing technology improve during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 How Was Roman Military Equipment Created and Distributed
- 📝 Has a country ever used an insurance company as a shield when the economy goes down?
- 📝 World War I Britain supplies cut
- 📝 Why acquire real vs forged signatures?
- 📝 Typical fortifications around major cities in the 18th century
- 📝 When/how did Harry Truman give the order to bomb Hiroshima?
- 📝 How did people wake up on time before alarm clocks?
- 📝 How do historians deal with inconsistencies?
- 📝 Why were the Istein and Schliengen enclaves transferred from Switzerland to Baden?
- 📝 Identification of a badge with Russian text
- 📝 Why are the German and French languages so different?
- 📝 Why were the Germans during the Nazi era so inventive?
- 📝 How did Churchill and Stalin intend to translate the percentages in the "Percentages agreement"?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What is the earliest mention of an estimate of 71% water (or 70.8%) / 29% land (or 29.2%)?
- 📝 What is the earliest mention of space travel?
- 📝 What is the earliest mention of use of spyglass by seafarers?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What is the earliest known account of the modern military salute?
- 📝 What is the earliest evidence of contact between Ireland and Egypt?
- 📝 What is the last historical mention of people worshipping the Roman gods?
- 📝 What is the earliest recorded female name in history?
- 📝 What is the earliest reference to "space aliens"?
- 📝 What is the earliest reliably dated event exact to the year?
- 📝 What was the largest land area that Germany has ever controlled?
- 📝 What was the earliest professional recording of "Happy Birthday to You"?
- 📝 What was the first documented mention of American English different from British English?
- 📝 What is the earliest evidence for the use of hearing aids?
- 📝 What was the earliest knitted sweater?
- 📝 What is the earliest recorded example of an extradition treaty or law?
- 📝 What is the earliest example of the usage of 'Nazis' to refer clearly and exclusively to the National-Socialists?
- 📝 What murals and decor might have been present in the earliest Sumerian temples?
- 📝 What are the earliest examples in history where one state/people stepped in to rescue another?
- 📝 Were there any well-established land trade routes in the US colonies around 1700? What did they look like?
- 📝 What is the earliest archaeological evidence of silk presence in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 What is the earliest known writing associating the number three with the dimension of the world?
- 📝 What is the earliest known book / novel trilogy in literature?
- 📝 What Land Runs were there in the U.S., and were the Indians paid for their land?
- 📝 What is the earliest passage that describes Hippocrates' observation that blood stratifies into four layers?
- 📝 What is the earliest depiction of a crane?
- 📝 What is the term for a person who surveys the land and relays messages from a noble to his governed village?
- 📝 What was the earliest known written constitution?
- 📝 What are the earliest written accounts of Sub-Saharan Africa from the outside?
- 📝 What is the earliest historical record of Hungarian words?