Null Island is a fictional place located at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude in the Gulf of Guinea, acting as a default dumping ground for geocoding errors in mapping software.

A closer look

Null Island is a fictional place located at zero degrees latitude and zero degrees longitude in the Gulf of Guinea, acting as a default dumping ground for geocoding errors in mapping software. If your smartphone GPS glitches or a developer forgets to input coordinates, millions of digital check-ins, lost fitness trackers, and misrouted taxi rides are virtually teleported to this exact patch of open ocean. There is literally nothing there but a lonely weather buoy, yet according to big data, it is one of the most frequently visited travel destinations on the planet. It is oddly comforting to know that our highly advanced surveillance technology still routinely throws its hands up in defeat and exiles our digital avatars to a watery abyss off the coast of Africa