
Coat of Arms - Manta, Ecuador
Posted by:
denben
S 00° 56.465 W 080° 43.656
17M E 530307 N 9895980
The Spanish-French Geodesic Mission Monument is located on a traffic island in front of the Tuna Fountain on the seafront Avenida Malecón in Manta, Ecuador.
Waymark Code: WM1834H
Location: Ecuador
Date Posted: 05/20/2023
Views: 1
The stone monument is decorated with ceramic coats of arms and is surmounted by a earth globe showing a bas-relief of the continents and the line of the equator and the inscriptions "LATITUD = 0 °" and "Manta".
The coat of arms of Manta is on the left, the central tile shows the coat of arms of Ecuador and the one on the right the coat of arms of the province of Manabí. Manta is the largest and most populous city in the province of Manabí in Ecuador. I did not find the meaning of the coat of arms of Manta.
The inscription on the monument reads (In Spanish):
" EL 10 DE MARZO DE 1736 DESEMBARCAN EN MANTA LA MISION GEODESICA FRANCESCA Y LOS GUARDIA MARINAS ESPANOLES PARA DETERMINAR LA FORMA DE LA TIERRA CON LA COLABORACION DEL ILUSTRE GEOGRAFO RIOBAMBENO, DON PEDRO VICENTE MALDONADO SIGLO XVIII
EL HONORABLE MUNICIPIO DE MANTA ANO 2004."
Google translation:
"ON MARCH 10, 1736, THE FRENCH GEODESIC MISSION AND THE SPANISH MARINE GUARD ARRIVED AT MANTA TO DETERMINE THE FORM OF THE EARTH WITH THE COLLABORATION OF THE ILLUSTRE RIOBAMBEN GEOGRAPHER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, DON PEDRO VICENTE MALDONADO.
THE HONORABLE MUNICIPALITY OF MANTA YEAR 2004."
From Wikipedia: "The French Geodesic Mission (also called the Geodesic Mission to Peru, Geodesic Mission to the Equator and the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission) was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of measuring the roundness of the Earth and measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the Equator. The mission was one of the first geodesic (or geodetic) missions carried out under modern scientific principles, and the first major international scientific expedition." (
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