Longitudeand Latitude Information
The perennial quest to find ones location on planet earth still dogs the human mind. The desire to know ones location, that too in the terms of some universally accepted measures has given birth to geographical concept of longitude and latitude. The efforts to find a solution to this puzzle were made first in classical Greece and China. Ptolemy's grid system that listed the coordinates of different places in the world found a mention in his book Geography. But the world had to wait till middle ages when the basics of latitude and longitude was defined and executed. The measurement of longitude and latitude is written in degrees that gives the location on earth.
For a common man perspective the use of longitude and latitude help him eke out the location of a particular place. For a given longitude and latitude map the latitude lines run horizontally or parallel and it is why these lines are called parallels. These lines are at the same distance from each other. For a more pragmatic approach, every degree of latitude is nearly 69 miles (111 km). However it keep varying as the earth is not a perfect sphere, instead it is an oblate ellipsoid(like an egg). The measurements of latitude and longitude are numbered from 0° to 90° north and south. A value of Zero degrees is assigned to the equator as it divides into the earth into two equal halves namely northern and southern hemispheres.
On the other hand longitude are vertical lines that converge at the poles. These lines are also known as meridians and are widest at the equator which is nearly 69 miles or 111 km apart. Several places were used as a zero degrees longitude before an agreement was reached in an international conference in 1884.. The longitude of Zero degrees is allocated to Greenwich, England (0°).
These two entities plays a significant role in day to day affairs and have prompted the need of longitude and latitude finder devices. These days most of the maps come with the list of longitude and latitude of the countries.
In the era where every information is offered through gadgets the use of longitude and latitude in GPS has made the things simple.
