A City at the Equator

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains.

The elevation of the city's central square (Plaza de La Independencia or Plaza Grande) is 2,800 m (about 9,186 ft), making Quito the second-highest administrative capital city in the world (after La Paz, Bolivia), and the highest legal capital (ahead of Sucre, also in Bolivia, and Bogotá, Colombia).

The central square of Quito is located about 25 km (15 miles) south of the equator; the city itself extends to within about 1 km (0.6 miles) of zero latitude. A monument and museum marking the general location of the equator is known locally as la mitad del mundo (the middle of the world), to avoid confusion, as the word "ecuador" is Spanish for equator.

Quito, along with Krakow, were the first World Cultural Heritage Sites declared by UNESCO in 1978.

Photo from left to right, top to bottom:
[1] monument at the location of the Equator; the lady is walking along the orange line on the ground which is our Equator
[2] city sight
[3] Cotopaxi, stratovolcano (18874 feet i.e. 5753 metres)
[4] a church
[5] monument from a distance
[6] city sight
[7] street between houses
[8] The Virgin of Quito statue
[9] high mountains of Quito
[10] a bird-like decoration of church
[11] skyline of city
[12] a beautiful lady standing on the line showing Equator, her left foot is on Northern Hemisphere while right on Southern Hemisphere
[13] a reptile decoration on church
[14] a lady standing near the statue of Virgin of Quito
[15] Basilica del Voto Nacional, a Roman Catholic church at Quito
[16] a bird-eye view of the city