Heading No. 1
Moored above Lima, Peru
Azimuthal chart centred on Lima: every straight line from the centre is a shortest route at its true bearing (ranges on a square-root scale).
The bearings
| Landmark capital | Bearing | Range |
|---|---|---|
| OsloNorway | 031° NNE | 11,040 km |
| Addis AbabaEthiopia | 086° E | 13,000 km |
| Buenos AiresArgentina | 146° SE | 3,140 km |
| CanberraAustralia | 221° SW | 12,850 km |
| SeoulSouth Korea | 324° NW | 16,310 km |
Why
The heading that fools a flat map is the one to Canberra (Australia): on a flat world map it seems to lie east (096°), yet the shortest route sets off south-west at 221°, because the shortest way there runs the other way round the globe, across the edge of the map. The nearest landmark capital was Buenos Aires (Argentina), 3,140 km away; the farthest, Seoul (South Korea), was 16,310 km away, 81% of the way to the far side of the globe. From Quito (Ecuador) and Panama City (Panama), all five landmarks bear within 11° of these headings, which is why the ranges matter.
Sources
Wikidata: Lima (capital coordinates, CC0) · Natural Earth 1:50m populated places (cross-check, public domain) · mledoze/countries (country names, ODbL)