Poeppel Corner (known as Poeppel's Corner in Queensland) at latitude 26° S and longitude 138° E is a corner of state boundaries in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, where the state of

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

meets

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

and the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

Geography

Poeppel Corner is about 174 km west of Birdsville, in the middle of the

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Deserts of Australia, Australian desert, with an area of . The Wangka ...

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinkin ...

occurs three times each year at thirty minute intervals in Poeppel Corner (also in Cameron Corner and

Surveyor Generals Corner Surveyor Generals Corner (or Surveyor-Generals Corner) is the point where the Australian state boundaries of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory meet. These boundaries meet at the easternmost point of the approximate ...

), because it is at the intersection of three

time zones Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compa ...

History

Augustus Poeppel, after whom the point is named, conducted a survey in the mid-1880s to find the exact location of the central Australian colonial borders. His team used camels to drag a coolibah post to mark the intersection. Originally the point was located in a

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per liter). I ...

, but it was found that the measuring chain used was a few centimetres too long. Another survey was conducted by Lawrence Wells, who relocated the post to its current position.

Tourism

As with the other three corners it is a destination for

four-wheel-drive A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case provi ...

tourists.

Heritage listing

The Poeppel Corner Survey Marker is a

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...

site, having been added to the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. As ...

in 2012.

References

External links