Champaign/Urbana, Illinois

Sterling	Aurora	Chicago
Peoria	Champaign/Urbana	Danville
Springfield	Decatur	Terre Haute, IN
Today's location: not yet announced

The 40,-88 graticule contains all of Champaign-Urbana, part of Bloomington and Normal, and several other smaller towns in Illinois.

Official Meetups

In accordance with the Main Page, the official meetup of the 40,-88 graticule will be held every Saturday at 4pm Central time.

• 2014-04-08 40 -88: Birthday hash in Champaign! And since it's two years and a day since the last hash, an almost-anniversary hash too! :P
• 2012-04-07 40 -88: After more than a year and a half, we are back with a bang. With 7 people, the graticule's biggest successful geohash so far!
• 2010-07-27 40 -88: Dvdllr leaves his home grat of Peoria to visit Normal.
• 2010-03-14 40 -88: Second annual Pi Day geohash!
• 2009-03-22 40 -88: excellentdude made it to this hash behind a McDonald's off an I-55 exit.
• 2009-03-20 40 -88: Solo geohash by Nathan to northern part of graticule.
• 2009-03-14 40 -88: Pi Day geohash!
• 2008-08-23 40 -88: Brett, Josh, and Alejandro hiked through prairie, soybeans, and corn to reach the coordinates.
• 2008-08-09 40 -88: Just 11 miles east of Champaign
• 2008-07-04 40 -88: The graticule's Independence Day coordinates fell right in the middle of Moraine View State Recreation Area.
• 2008-06-21 39 -88: The day's coordinates fell right at the northern edge of the graticule. Brett, Manish, and Yoon-young made it to the 39,-88 coordinates which fell near Allerton Park instead.
• 2008-06-08 40 -88: Brett biked to the coordinates despite vicious headwinds and temperatures over 90 degrees. He got within 500 feet and, once again, left a flag marking the spot.
• 2008-06-07 40 -88: Brett made it to the coordinates after an easy drive north from Champaign. He expected to meet other geohashers, but none showed up. He left a flag marking the spot.
• 2008-05-24 40 -88: Success! The first official meetup was in a field about 20 miles from Champaign-Urbana and about 50 miles from Bloomington-Normal. Kyle, Kim, Matt, and Brett met by the road adjoining the field and hiked through corn seedlings to the geohashing point.

Graticule History

On Friday, October 12th, 2007, at 7:45pm, xkcd author Randall Munroe gave a talk at 40.1139,-88.2211 for the ACM Reflections Projections Conference at the University of Illinois (citation). The talk was about "his experiences drawing xkcd and playing with kites." A video of this talk is available online.

External Links

• Official Geohashing Coordinate Calculator - compute today's geohashed coordinates (available only after 8:30am Central).
• Official Atom feed for 40,-88