The Equator crosses 13 sovereign countries on land or through their territorial waters.
The Equator is the imaginary circle around Earth that lies halfway between the North and South Poles. It has a latitude of 0 degrees and divides the planet into the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The countries associated with the Equator are Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, São Tomé and Príncipe, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Indonesia, Kiribati, and the Maldives. In some cases, the line passes through islands or territorial waters rather than a country’s mainland.
The Equator is not exactly a perfect circle on a flat map, and maps may depict its path differently because Earth is slightly flattened at the poles. A common mistake is to count only mainland crossings, which produces a smaller number than the standard sovereign-country total.