We present new, detailed estimates of Nubia–North America plate motion since 20 Ma based on 21 rotations that reconstruct seafloor spreading magnetic lineations and fracture zone flow lines between the two plates and an instantaneous angular velocity that best fits the velocities of 1343 GPS stations on the two plates. Total opening distances and opening gradients along the plate boundary are constrained by nearly 11 000 crossings of magnetic reversals 1n (0.78 Ma) to 6n (19.7 Ma) from shipboard and aeromagnetic data surveys of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the Azores triple junction and Fifteen-Twenty fracture zone. Plate slip directions are estimated from flow lines digitized from multibeam, single-beam and satellite-based bathymetry for the Oceanographer, Hayes and Atlantis fracture zones. Linear extrapolations of seafloor spreading distances for young magnetic reversals to zero seafloor age shows that magnetic reversal boundaries everywhere along the plate boundary are shifted outwards by 1 ± 0.5 km from