Land and water hemispheres

The land hemisphere and water hemisphere are the hemispheres of Earth containing the largest possible total areas of land and ocean, respectively. By definition (assuming that the entire surface can be classed as either "land" or "ocean"), the two hemispheres do not overlap. Determinations of the hemispheres vary slightly. One determination places the centre of the land hemisphere at (in the city of Nantes, France). The centre of the water hemisphere is the antipode of the centre of the land hemisphere, and is therefore located at (near New Zealand's Bounty Islands in the Pacific Ocean). An alternative assignment determines the centre of the land hemisphere to be at (in Île Dumet near Piriac-sur-Mer, France). The centre of the water hemisphere is located at (also near New Zealand's Bounty Islands in the Pacific Ocean). In comparison the geographic center of the Pacific Ocean, the main ocean of the water hemisphere, is further north-east, in eastern Kiribati south of Kiritimati, just west from Starbuck Island at . The oceanic pole of inaccessibility, known as Point Nemo and for being the so-called spacecraft cemetery, lies east at . The land hemisphere has the substantial majority of the planet's land (80.1 percent), including nearly all of Asia (with Maritime Southeast Asia being the only notable exception) and most of South America. Africa, Europe, and North America are solely within the land hemisphere. However, even in the land hemisphere, the water area still slightly exceeds the land area (with 53 percent water to 47 percent land). This hemisphere is almost identical to the hemisphere containing the greatest human population. The land hemisphere also contains most of Earth's inland waters, including the African Great Lakes, Eurasia's Caspian Sea, the Great Lakes of North America, and Lake Baikal in Siberia. The water hemisphere has only about one-fifth of the world's land, including Easter Island, the Hawaiian Islands, other Pacific islands, Maritime Southeast Asia, the southern tip of the Indochinese Peninsula, the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, and the Southern Cone of the Americas.