Why longitude is negative

Sometimes, latitudes north of the Equator are denoted by a positive sign. Latitudes south of the Equator are given negative values. This eliminates the need to add whether the specified latitude is north or south of the Equator. Longitudes are, therefore, imaginary circles that intersect the North and South Poles and the Equator.

Half of a longitudinal circle is known as a Meridian. Meridians are perpendicular to every latitude. Unlike, latitudes, there is no obvious central longitude. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

In our example, 0. We received feedback from several users that the degrees minutes format was preferred, though not offered yet in Voyager. In response to this request, we have added this additional coordinate format and made it the new default. There are many conventions for how to record latitude and longitude, and they present challenges for a computer.

To avoid problems, unless a program explicitly prompts or allows to use use minutes or second, you should always use decimal degrees; it is easy to use a spreadsheet to convert if necessary. Positive coordinates are to the right east and up north. This means that the Western Hemisphere has negative longitudes. If you create databases which do not plot on the map, you should check on a full world map to see if they are plotting in the wrong hemisphere, which is a common student problem when entering coordinates in the Western or Southern hemisphere..

Department of Defense. Reading and understanding GPS coordinates requires a basic understanding of navigation using the lines of latitude and longitude. Using both sets of lines provides a coordinate for the different places around the world. Lines of latitude are horizontal lines that stretch from east to west across the globe. The longest and main line of latitude is called the Equator. You can view more information on lines of latitude and longitude by watching this YouTube video using the link below:.

It is given as geographical coordinates. When outlining the coordinates of a location, the line of latitude is always given first followed by the line of longitude. An example of this format is:. The line of latitude is read as 41 degrees 41 , The coordinate for the line of latitude represents north of the Equator because it is positive.