The total solar eclipse of 2008 August 01 predominantly occurs in extremely sparsely populated regions of the Canadian and European Arctic as well as West Siberia. The zone of the total eclipse begins in the area of the famous Northwest Transit, not far from the settlement Cambridge Bay, and then it passes through the islands of the Canadian Arctic, which politically belongs to the region Nunavut. Although there are some settlements in the huge region, the umbra however falls only for around 1m37s on Grise Fjord, which counts approx. 160 inhabitants, in the south of Ellesmere Island as well as its neighbouring place Craig Harbour, which is uninhabited today; Resolute Bay will be missed narrowly. A few minutes later the total eclipse appears over the Canadian military base Alert, for passing then through the uninhabited north of Greenland and the polar sea; the extreme northeast of Europe will be touched on the Russian islands of Nowaya Zemlja . The mainland, however, will be only reached on the other side of the Ural Mountains in the Asian part of Russia.

In the sparsely populated North West Siberia the maximum eclipse will be listed with 2m27s duration and 104% covering at latitude 65°38’08’’ north and longitude 72°16’04’’ east at 10.21 UT. Around 25 minutes later the umbra falls on the city Novosibirsk in the early afternoon local time for 2m19s. After further cities in the south of Siberia have been witnesses to the rare event, the central zone stretches on both sides of the border between Mongolia and China to the southwest. Towards evening the total eclipse reaches the region around the historical silk road and the Great Wall of China before the eclipse ends in the region between the cities Xian and Zhengzhou at sunset.