Skip to content
Wellsprings
geography

Klimata (Latitudinal Zones)

κλίματα

The system that sliced the earth into east–west bands by latitude, each marked by the angle of the sun and the length of its longest day.

A klima (plural klimata) was a latitudinal belt of the earth defined by the sun's angle — measured by the length of the longest day or the noon shadow — so any place could be pinned down by which band it fell in. Early Greek thought split the globe into five broad zones, two frigid, two temperate, and one torrid, an idea linked to Parmenides and Aristotle. The precise, calculated klimata that working geographers used were developed by Eratosthenes and especially Hipparchus (3rd–2nd century BCE), then systematized by Ptolemy. This framework underpinned ancient mapmaking and the long debate over which latitudes could be lived in.

Where this idea shows up

4 Greek sources

Where to read it