Dig straight through the Earth — you probably won't end up where you think

If you grabbed a shovel and dug a perfectly straight tunnel through the center of the Earth, where would you come out? The point directly on the opposite side of the globe is called your antipode, and for most people the answer is surprisingly wet. That's because over 70% of Earth's land has ocean on its opposite side.

This means that if you're standing anywhere in the United States and dig straight through, you won't pop out in China — a common myth. You'd actually surface in the Indian Ocean, somewhere between Madagascar and Australia. In fact, only about 4% of Earth's land has land on both sides. The largest land-to-land antipodal pair is Spain and New Zealand, which sit almost perfectly opposite each other on the globe.

This quirk of geography happens because most of Earth's continents are clustered in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere is dominated by ocean. It's a simple concept, but it completely reshapes how you picture the planet — the world isn't as symmetrically balanced as most maps make it seem.