Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above
website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed
sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above,
we pass this GPS location for Harwich:
30.389914, -91.184829
Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
The eBird website is organized on a parish-by-parish basis. We have selected East Baton Rouge Parish as the starting point when you click on the link below:
We found two communities that share the name Harwich.
Within Louisiana, the name Harwich is unique.
Beyond Louisiana, we know of another two communities that are located throughout in the United States and Canada. Of these two communities, one is located in the United States and the other in Canada.
Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
Massachusetts
Barnstable County
This Harwich is located in Barnstable County and lies 1,407 miles [2,264.3 km]<1> to the northeast of the Harwich that is located in East Baton Rouge Parish.
For more information, please visit our profile page for the Barnstable County community of Harwich.
Ontario
We found mention of this community, but have little information.<2> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Ontario community of Harwich.
Curious and Interesting Names Near Harwich ...
As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.
College Park (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for College Park have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Zee Zee Gardens is located in East Baton Rouge Parish
How Far From Harwich to ...
We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as Harwich to various places of note, such as the White House.
With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in Harwich and extending to:
Baton Rouge, which is the State Capital of Louisiana, lies just to the north northeast (NNE).
The White House (Washington, DC) is 993 miles [1,598.1 km]<1> to the northeast (NE). If you could drive a straight line from Harwich to White House, with an average speed<4>of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, it would take most of two days to make the trip. A comfortable walk of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour would take 57 days. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take 39 days.
The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 6,886 miles [11,081.9 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<6>
The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,596 miles [12,224.6 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<7>
The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 5,472 miles [8,806.3 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>
Footnotes ...
<1>
Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Harwich) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Harwich. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 30.3899, Longitude: -91.1848 In this case, the coordinates for Harwich have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<2>
If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.
Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.
Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.
Also keep in mind that Harwich could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong parish. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<3>
The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<4>
While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<5>
The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from Harwich to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.
<6>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 316.05 degrees.
<7>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 311.619 degrees.
<8>
The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 312.59 degrees.