The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere (from the Greek word σφαιρα (sphere) +ημι (half)) literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere". It is also that half of the celestial sphere south of the celestial equator. The Southern Hemisphere contains all or parts of four continents (Antarctica, Australia, most parts of South America and southern half of Africa), four oceans (South Atlantic, Indian, South Pacific, and Southern) and most of Oceania. Several islands off the Asian continental mainland are also in the Southern Hemisphere. Due to the tilt of Earth's rotation relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane, summer is December to March and winter is June to September. September 22 or 23 is the vernal equinox and March 20 or 21 is the autumnal equinox.
Read more about Southern Hemisphere: Geography
Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or hemisphere:
“There are many ways of discarding [books]. You can give them to friends,—or enemies,—or to associations or to poor Southern libraries. But the surest way is to lend them. Then they never come back to bother you.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862?–1942)
“Rome, the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)