What does longitude and latitude mean?

Answer 1

Longitude measures the east-west angle between your location and the Prime Meridian.

Latitude measures the north-south angle between your location and the equator.

With these two numbers, you can pin the location down to any point on earth, within a few feet.

Latitude

The latitude angle lambdaImagine the Earth was a transparent sphere(actually the shape is slightly oval; because of the Earth's rotation, its equator bulges out a little). Through the transparent Earth (drawing) we can see its equatorial plane, and its middle the point is O, the center of the Earth.

To specify the latitude of some point P on the surface, draw the radius OP to that point. Then the elevation angle of that point above the equator is its latitude λ--northern latitude if north of the equator, southern (or negative) latitude if south of it. [How can one define the angle between a line and a plane, you may well ask? After all, angles are usually measured between twolines!

Good question. We must use the angle which completes it to 90 degrees, the one between the given line and one perpendicular to the plane. Here that would be the angle (90°-λ) between OP and the Earth's axis, known as the co-latitude of P.]

On the globe, lines of constant longitude ("meridians") extend from pole to pole, like the segment boundaries on a peeled orange. Lines of latitudeOn a globe of the Earth, lines of latitude are circles of different size. The longest is the equator, whose latitude is zero, while at the poles--at latitudes 90° north and 90° south (or -90°) the circles shrink to a point.

Longitude

Every meridian must cross the equator. Since the equator is a circle, we can divide it--like any circle--into 360 degrees, and the longitude φ of a point is then the marked value of that division where its meridian meets the equator.Longitude

lines or "meridians"

What that value is depends of course on where we begin to count--on where zero longitude is. For historical reasons, the meridian passing the old Royal Astronomical Observatory in Greenwich, England, is the one chosen as zero longitude. Located at the eastern edge of London, the British capital, the observatory is now a public museum and a brass band stretching across its yard marks the "prime meridian." Tourists often get photographed as they straddle it--one foot in the eastern hemisphere of the Earth, the other in the Western Hemisphere. A lines of longitude is also called a meridian, derived from the Latin, from meri, a variation of "medius" which denotes "middle", and diem, meaning "day." The word once meant "noon", and times of the day before noon were known as "ante meridian", while times after it were "post meridian." Today's abbreviations a.m. and p.m. come from these terms, and the Sun at noon was said to be "passing meridian". All points on the same line of longitude experienced noon (and any other hour) at the same time and were therefore said to be on the same "meridian line", which became "meridian" for short.

Latitude and longitude are measures of position on the earths spherical surface. They are angular measures, taken as an angle from the earths center. Imagine a Basketball, it has a pip in the grain that defines the top pole and bottom pole. This is where you spin it most easily. The earth is the same, it rotates around an axis. The equator is then the fatest part of the sphere. The equator is defined to be 0 degrees of latitude, the poles are then 90 degrees north and south latitude.

Longitude is a bit more arbitrary. A prime meridian is defined to exist, it is a line running between the north and south poles and passing through Greenwich England. This is defined to be 0 degrees of longitude. Since the earth is a sphere, there are 360 degrees of longitude around the circumference of the sphere. longitude is defined to be east and west, so for example, Chicago is located at 42 degrees north latitude, 87 degrees west longitude. Using these two coordinates, any location on the surface of the earth can be defined.

Answer 2

Latitude: Horizontal lines that measure a distance North or South from the Equator based on a degree system.

0° is the Equator

90° N (90°) is the North Pole

90° S (-90°) is the South pole

Longitude: Vertical lines that run all the way around the earth and converge at the poles.

0° is located at the royal observatory, Greenwich England

The lines run the entire distance around the planet in either direction and end at the opposite side of the Earth 180°

They are denoted with either

xx° E or xx° W