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The distance between two points 1 degree apart on the same circle of latitude, measured along that circle of latitude, is slightly more than the shortest distance between those points (unless on the equator, where these are equal); the difference is less than 0.6 m (2 ft).
Geographical distance or geodetic distance is the distance measured along the surface of the Earth, or the shortest arch length. The formulae in this article calculate distances between points which are defined by geographical coordinates in terms of latitude and longitude. This distance is an element in solving the second (inverse) geodetic ...
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. [2] [3] [4] Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( 1 / 60 of a degree) of latitude at the equator, so that Earth's polar circumference is very near to 21,600 nautical miles (that is 60 minutes × 360 degrees).
The geocentric latitude θ is the complement of the polar angle or colatitude θ′ in conventional spherical polar coordinates in which the coordinates of a point are P(r,θ′,λ) where r is the distance of P from the centre O, θ′ is the angle between the radius vector and the polar axis and λ is longitude.
Longitude measures the rotational angle between the zero meridian and the measured point. By convention for the Earth, Moon and Sun, it is expressed in degrees ranging from −180° to +180°. For other bodies a range of 0° to 360° is used. For this purpose, it is necessary to identify a zero meridian, which for Earth is usually the Prime ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 1 March 2025. System to specify locations on Earth For broader coverage of this topic, see Spatial reference system. Longitude lines are perpendicular to and latitude lines are parallel to the Equator. Geodesy Fundamentals Geodesy Geodynamics Geomatics History Concepts Geographical distance Geoid Figure ...
With this method, al-Bīrūnī estimated the longitude difference between Baghdad and Ghazni using distance estimates from travellers over two different routes (and with a somewhat arbitrary adjustment for the crookedness of the roads). His result for the longitude difference between the two cities differs by about 1° from the modern value. [14]
The precision of the latitude part does not increase so much, more strictly however, a meridian arc length per 1 second depends on the latitude at the point in question. The discrepancy of 1 second meridian arc length between equator and pole is about 0.3 metres (1 ft 0 in) because the earth is an oblate spheroid.