page_title: DARPA Network Challenge
section_title: Verified balloon locations
hierarchical_section_title: DARPA Network Challenge / Verified balloon locations
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the locations of the balloons in the DARPA Network Challenge
context_page_description: The 2009 DARPA Network Challenge was a prize competition for exploring the roles the Internet and social networking play in the real-time communications, wide-area collaborations, and practical actions required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The competition was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research organization of the United States Department of Defense. The challenge was designed to help the military generate ideas for operating under a range of circumstances, such as natural disasters. Congress authorized DARPA to award cash prizes to further DARPA's mission to sponsor revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between fundamental discoveries and their use for national security.
  In the competition, teams had to locate ten red balloons placed around the United States and then report their findings to DARPA. Due to the distributed nature of the contest, many teams used online resources, such as social media sites, to gather information or to recruit people that would look for balloons. Teams often had to deal with false submissions, and so they needed to come up with ways to validate and confirm reported sightings.
context_section_description: The officially verified coordinates of the balloons, listed by their tag numbers, were:
  Balloon 1:  Union Square, San Francisco, California 37°47′16″N 122°24′26″W
  Balloon 2:  Chaparral Park, Scottsdale, Arizona 33°30′36″N 111°54′29″W
  Balloon 3:  Tonsler Park, Charlottesville, Virginia  38°1′34″N 78°29′28″W
  Balloon 4:  Chase Palm Park, Santa Barbara, California 34°24′51″N 119°41′5″W
  Balloon 5:  Lee Park, Memphis, Tennessee 35°8′17″N 90°3′43″W
  Balloon 6:  Collins Avenue, Miami, Florida 25°54′14″N 80°7′31″W
  Balloon 7:  Glasgow Park, Christiana, Delaware 39°36′30″N 75°43′51″W
  Balloon 8:  Katy Park, Katy, Texas 29°48′56″N 95°48′15″W
  Balloon 9:  Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon 45°30′44″N 122°40′28″W
  Balloon 10: Centennial Park, Atlanta, Georgia 33°45′33″N 84°23′33″W
caption: Balloon locations
exif: {}