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The graticule shows the latitude and longitude of points on the surface. In this example meridians are spaced at 6° intervals and parallels at 4° intervals. In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body.
The length of a degree of longitude (east–west distance) depends only on the radius of a circle of latitude. For a sphere of radius a that radius at latitude φ is a cos φ , and the length of a one-degree (or π / 180 radian ) arc along a circle of latitude is
Informally, specifying a geographic location usually means giving the location's latitude and longitude. The numerical values for latitude and longitude can occur in a number of different units or formats: [2] sexagesimal degree: degrees, minutes, and seconds : 40° 26′ 46″ N 79° 58′ 56″ W; degrees and decimal minutes: 40° 26.767′ N ...
A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. [1] It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used type of the various spatial reference systems that are in use, and forms the basis for most others.
Decimal degrees (DD) is a notation for expressing latitude and longitude geographic coordinates as decimal fractions of a degree. DD are used in many geographic information systems (GIS), web mapping applications such as OpenStreetMap, and GPS devices. Decimal degrees are an alternative to using degrees-minutes-seconds notation. As with ...
Geodetic latitude and geocentric latitude have different definitions. Geodetic latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and the surface normal at a point on the ellipsoid, whereas geocentric latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and a radial line connecting the centre of the ellipsoid to a point on the surface (see figure).
Latitude and longitude should be displayed by sexagesimal fractions (i.e. minutes and seconds). When minutes and seconds are less than ten, leading zeroes should be shown. Degree, minutes and seconds should be followed by the symbols ° ( U+00B0 ), ′ ( U+2032 ), and ″ ( U+2033 ), without spaces between the number and symbol.
Latitude and longitude coordinates on maps are usually expressed in degrees. In the given forms of the formulae below, one or more values must be expressed in the specified units to obtain the correct result. Where geographic coordinates are used as the argument of a trigonometric function, the values may be expressed in any angular units ...