Latitudes and Longitudes

GCS or geographical coordinating is an ellipsoidal or spherical coordinate system for communicating and measuring the spherical position directly on Earth as latitudes and longitudes. It is the oldest and simplest system used by a thousand scientists for the spatial reference system which is the most used and basic form than others. Though, the geographical coordination system is not Cartesian as it does not measure by angles and planar surface.  

This paper is based on the idea of latitudes and longitudes, and their use in geographic calculators. Also, it will conclude how to calculate latitude and longitude, with the total formula applied to the calculation. 

Description of Latitudes and Longitudes

Latitude is the line that runs across the map from east to west, and it indicates the north-south position of any point on earth. The latitude lines start at 0 degrees at the equator and at the end of 90 degrees at the north to south poles.  There are a total of 180 degrees of latitude. The calculation of latitude states the higher the value of the degree to latitude, the point is to the south or North Pole. 

The equators closer to the north are known as the northern hemisphere and equators close to the south are known as the southern hemisphere.  The lines of latitude are known as parallel and there are a total of 180 degrees of latitude.   The distance between each line or each degree of latitude is 110 kilometers or 69 miles.  The parallel is the name of all connecting points with the same line of latitude.   There are five major latitudes from North to south, which are named, Arctic Circle, tropic of cancer, equator, tropic of Capricorn, and Antarctic Circle. The equator divides the earth into two parts, northern and southern hemispheres marked as the location of 0-degree latitudes. 

Longitude is the line that runs north to south and marks the position of the east-west points. The distance of east to west prime meridian, longitude is the angular distance between them.  Lines of longitude run from one pole to pole, and cross the equator at their right angles.  All the lines are equal in length and also half of the great circle. There are a total of 360 degrees of longitude and each of them is +180 degrees eastward and -180 degrees westwards. The 0-degree longitude is known as prime meridian which divides the world into the eastern hemisphere and western hemisphere.

Formula to calculate latitude and longitude of my location

The easiest and simple way to calculate distance using latitudes and longitudes is the Haversine formula. This formula is used to calculate the distance between spheres. This formula measures the triangle of the spheres and measures the angles and sides of each sphere to calculate the distance between points. It was basically used before digitized calculation navigation, and this calculation is based on the radius on earth and for different spherical counterparts.  Spheres do not have parallel lines on them. The lines are considered a great circle, so when two lines anywhere interact with themselves or cross at a point, the latitude and longitude calculation can be done on the point radius number. 

This formula can be calculated manually, but there are many digitized platforms that can make the calculation easier, that assume correct data.  So if I want to know the latitude and longitude of my location, then it should be calculated through 

“sin²(Δφ/2) + cos φ1 ⋅ cos φ2 ⋅ sin²(Δλ/2)”; where φ represents latitude and λ represents longitude. Now southern and western latitudes present as negative numbers.  So as per the formula, if I am calculating the longitude and latitude of Kolkata, India as my location, then, what is the latitude and longitude of my location?

The answer will be latitude = 22.572645; longitude = 88.363892.  

Difference between Latitudes and Longitudes

As the Earth is a rotating planet, the times of earth and longitudes are incredibly related to each other. Local times change with longitudes. When 15 degrees of longitude change, the local time also changes for 1 hour on the planet.  Local time can be calculated by calculating the longitude measurement.  

Conclusion 

Both latitude and longitudes are measured in degrees. It can be divided into seconds and minutes. The latitude also has the symbol of phi, and longitude has the symbol of lambda. Latitude is specified by degree 0 to start and end at 90 degrees. Where longitude is maximum defined as 180 degrees. This paper has several aspects that cover the concept of Latitudes and Longitudes, and the formula to calculate the value of any point in the world.