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Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole, with 0° at the Equator. Lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east-west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude and longitude are used together as a coordinate pair to specify a location on the surface of the Earth.
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).
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 22 February 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 ...
A circle of latitude or line of latitude on Earth is an abstract east–west small circle connecting all locations around Earth (ignoring elevation) at a given latitude coordinate line. Circles of latitude are often called parallels because they are parallel to each other; that is, planes that contain any of these circles never intersect each ...
The precise standard meanings of latitude, longitude and altitude are currently defined by the World Geodetic System (WGS), and take into account the flattening of the Earth at the poles (about 21 km or 13 miles) and many other details. Planetary coordinate systems use formulations analogous to the geographic coordinate system.
If these lines are a parallel of latitude, as in conical projections, it is called a standard parallel. The central meridian is the meridian to which the globe is rotated before projecting. The central meridian (usually written λ 0) and a parallel of origin (usually written φ 0) are often used to define the origin of the map projection. [22] [23]
Equirectangular projection of the world; the standard parallel is the equator (plate carrée projection). Equirectangular projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation and with the standard parallels lying on the equator True-colour satellite image of Earth in equirectangular projection Height map of planet Earth at 2km per pixel, including oceanic bathymetry information, normalized as 8 ...
Snyder [6] describes generating formulae for the projection, as well as the projection's characteristics. Coordinates from a spherical datum can be transformed into Albers equal-area conic projection coordinates with the following formulas, where is the radius, is the longitude, the reference longitude, the latitude, the reference latitude and and the standard parallels: