What would your country be like if the land masses were rotated by 90°?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]What would your country be like if the land masses were rotated by 90°? Let's imagine that this alternate Earth develops over millions of years, giving time for ecosystems and climate zones to settle out. Let's take a closer look at each continent. North America's climate is similar to before, but flipped north-south. Central America is now Asian polar, while Arctic Canada becomes tropical. Hurricanes threaten Greenland, Baffin Island, and the Maritimes.

[00:00:21]Tropical moisture from Baffin Bay and the former North Atlantic mixes with cool air flowing down from the Rockies, creating a new tornado alley in the prairies inland from Hudson Bay. South America looks sort of like the old Europe. It's cool and temperate along the Brazilian coast with grasslands and boreal forests along much of its width.

[00:00:36]In the south, the boreal vegetation gives way to polar tundra and eventually to the massive ice-bound Andes, which cut the continent off from the frozen polar waters. The Amazon, which in our world carries more water than the next seven rivers put together, is reduced to something akin to the Mississippi. Asia is flipped in the same way North America was, with the Siberian coast now facing an enclosed tropical sea. The Indian subcontinent and former Southeast Asia form the new Siberia. The Gobi Desert is no longer in the rain shadow of the Himalayas, but it doesn't exactly become tropical. Europe resembles the old Southeast Asia. Great Britain and Ireland look like the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Iceland resembles our Philippines, and Central Europe is the new New Guinea, with the Alps the only place on the equator with permanent glaciers. Africa is rotated by 90°, with former West Africa becoming tropical rainforest, and former East Africa an arid desert. On our Earth, North America has by far the most tornadoes of any continent, but in this world, I bet they'd be frequent in Africa as well.

[00:01:30]Australia is cooler and wetter with forests along the formerly dry western regions. But Antarctica is the clear winner. Without its ice cap, it's a bit smaller than we remember, but most of it is blanketed with highland rainforest.

[00:01:42]There are alpine zones around the mountains to the south and west. The researchers at McMurdo and Ross Island work in a tropical paradise. If any of them decide they miss the frozen wastelands, hey, they can always put in for a transfer to Costa Rica.