Struve Geodetic Arc
Arco geodésico de Struve
- Date
- 1816-1855 · confidence high
- Place
- Tartu, Tartu County, Estonia
- Credited to
- Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
A chain of triangulations over 2,800 km long from Hammerfest (Norway) to the Black Sea that gave the first accurate measurement of a long meridian arc. Directed from the Tartu observatory, it crosses ten present-day countries.
Struve directed the arc from the Dorpat (now Tartu) observatory, in the Russian Empire. The place given is the project's headquarters: the arc runs through Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.
What it led to
- the most accurate determination of the Earth's size and flattening of its time
- precision mapping from the Baltic to Bessarabia
- a model of international geodetic cooperation (UNESCO World Heritage in 2005)