Geographical pole

For other uses, see Pole (disambiguation).

A geographical axis of rotation A (green), and showing the north geographical pole A1, and south geographical pole A2; also showing a magnetic field and the magnetic axis of rotation B (blue), and the north magnetic pole B2, and south magnetic pole B1.

A geographical pole is either of the two points on a planet, dwarf planet or natural satellite, or a "large" rotating body or sphere where the body's axis of rotation intersects its surface. As with Earth's North and South Poles, they are usually called that body's "north pole" and "south pole", one lying 90 degrees in one direction from the body's equator and the other lying 90 degrees in the opposite direction from the equator.

Every planet has geographical poles. If, like the Earth, a body generates a magnetic field, it will also possess magnetic poles.

Perturbations in a body's rotation mean that geographical poles wander slightly on its surface. The Earth's North and South Poles, for example, move by a few metres over periods of a few years. As cartography requires exact and unchanging coordinates, the averaged locations of geographical poles are taken as fixed cartographic poles and become the points where the body's great circles of longitude intersect.

See also

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a HTML "div" (division) open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates

Type	Family	Handles wiki  table code?	Responsive/ Mobile suited	Start template	Column divider	End template
Float	"Col-float"	Yes	Yes	{{Col-float}}	{{Col-float-break}}	{{Col-float-end}}
	"Columns-start"	Yes	Yes	{{Columns-start}}	{{Column}}	{{Columns-end}}
Columns	"Div col"	Yes	Yes	{{Div col}}	–	{{Div col end}}
	"Columns-list"	No	Yes	{{Columns-list}} (wraps div col)	–	–
Flexbox	"Flex columns"	No	Yes	{{Flex columns}}	–	–
Table	"Col"	Yes	No	{{Col-begin}}, {{Col-begin-fixed}} or {{Col-begin-small}}	{{Col-break}} or {{Col-2}} .. {{Col-5}}	{{Col-end}}

Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.