Technically, the tropics would be an area hugging the equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, between approximately 23°26′-or-so north and south. The two latitudes marked the extent the sun might appear directly overhead if only briefly on a single day, the summer solstice. Tropics also had a more widespread definition that included mild, lush areas in general. I could understand placenames in South Florida incorporating Tropic, Tropical or Tropicana, for example, because the Tropic of Cancer almost clipped it. But Utah? Not so much.
Tropic, Utah
Yet, that’s what I noticed in the Twelve Mile Circle reader logs. The visitor arrived on the site from Tropic, Utah (map). I’m sure it was a fine town full of lovely people in a wonderful setting. I had no quarrel with the town although the name surprised me.
Tropic was a gateway to Bryce Canyon National Park. I’ve been to Bryce and it’s great, albeit not what most observers might consider tropical, geographically or stereotypically. It snows in Bryce Canyon. Roads close. Rangers lead snowshoe hikes. The park holds a winter carnival. So that didn’t sound like The Tropics to me.(¹)
Nonetheless, the Town of Tropic did its best to put a happy face on its inherent contradiction.
“It was suggested by Andrew J. Hansen to call it ‘Tropic’. To support the suggestion, he stated that people would come to their little valley where peaches, apples, grapes and other semi-tropical fruits would be found. The name Tropic was adopted; with the population of about 15 families.”
Thus, the name appeared to be a late 19th Century marketing ploy. Town founders focused optimistically on the warmer months and ignored the rest of the year. That didn’t make it tropical though. For Tropic, Utah to be genuinely tropic it would need to move to a latitude at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.
Let’s go ahead a flog that dead horse a bit longer because, honestly, I don’t have anything better to do this morning.
Tropic of Cancer Beach, The Bahamas
Precious few places bore the names of the the magical lines that marked a tropical transition. One was Tropic of Cancer Beach on Little Exuma in The Bahamas (map). It was truth in advertising too. The Tropic of Cancer did indeed cross through the beach. A line marking the approximate location appeared in the first few frames of the YouTube video I borrowed.
It might be ill-advised to draw a comparison between the name of the beach and the harmful effects of long-term overexposure to sunlight. Nonetheless I shall note that it was probably a better option than Melanoma Beach. Ignoring that inconvenient fact, its shimmering blue waters, white sand, and light breeze certainly seemed stereotypically tropical!
Hualien, Taiwan
Of course the world wasn’t filled solely with sandy beaches. There are plenty of tropical places that one didn’t necessary think of as meeting the palm tree and umbrella drink stereotype. For instance, the Tropic of Cancer cut through Taiwan, placing half of the island nation within the tropics. In return, Taiwan recognized the line with several markers spread geographically across its landmass. This including a remarkable specimen in Hualien (map).
However, the most amusing notion of tropical latitude would be that the boundaries drift over time. Currently the lines are moving slightly towards the equator by a few feet each year as part of a complicated cycle. Any fixed monument marking the actual Tropic of Cancer becomes noticeably incorrect almost immediately unless it’s portable. That won’t work for the Taiwanese monument. It’s already on the wrong spot by definition.
Even so, highway officials did it correctly along a highway in Mexico, Carretera 83, near Victoria (map) in the state of Tamaulipas.
America’s Most Spurious
Utah may not be the tropics although it was still better than a considerably more confounding occurrence I discovered in the Geographic Names Information System: Tropic, Ohio. That was quite the oxymoron. A little additional research traced its name to a nearby coal mine. I guess they ran out of suitable names.
12MC Loves Footnotes!
(¹) That’s not to say it never snows in the tropics as defined geographically. There are exceptions. If all these years of writing 12MC have taught me one thing, it’s that very few statements are absolutes.
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