Question

Why was the Greenwich longitude taken as the Prime Meridian?

• A. The Meridian was exactly at the centre of the Eastern and Western hemispheres.
• B. Many ships already used Greenwich as a reference point.
• C. A large part of the world was already using the Greenwich longitude as a reference point.
• D. Americans started using the Greenwich Meridian as their reference meridian to fix their national time zone system.

Answer 1

Answer: (B), (C), (D)

The correct options are
B Many ships already used Greenwich as a reference point.
C A large part of the world was already using the Greenwich longitude as a reference point.
D Americans started using the Greenwich Meridian as their reference meridian to fix their national time zone system.

There were a couple of reasons for choosing Greenwich longitude as the Prime Meridian. Most of the ships involved in sea-trade at the time were already using Greenwich as the reference point. The second reason was that the Americans started using the Greenwich Meridian as their reference meridian to fix their national time zone system. So, generally a large part of the world was already using it as a reference point.