What side of the international date line is vanuatu?

Answer 1

The capital of Vanuatu, Port-Vila, is at 168.315 east longitude ... about 770 miles

due west of the 180th meridian.

It's hard to tell exactly where the International Dateline is in this neighborhood.

In fact, on January 1, 2012, Samoa synced its calendar date and day of the week

with Fiji's, and that meant that they essentially re-drew the IDL's map.

But the IDL is well east of the 180th meridian in this part of the Pacific Ocean,

so whatever they did to it, they didn't flip Vanuatu to the other side.

Now, having said that, I can't end without pointing out that the Earth is, after

all, spherical in shape, i.e. shaped like a ball. So you can start out from the IDL

and go in either direction, and eventually wind up in Vanuatu. But your trip is a

lot shorter if you head out westward.

The exact length of your trip depends on exactly where in Vanuatu you're headed.

Vanuatu consists of 65 inhabited islands and 17 more that are uninhabited. It

covers almost 4 degrees of longitude, and about 7 degrees of latitude ... about

270 miles wide and 500 miles north to south. The length of your trip from the

IDL ... like any other trip, depends on exactly where you start from, and exactly

where you intend to wind up.