What is the difference between Latitude and Longitude?
Hint: Geographic, or Unprojected, refers to how we represent the Earth in spherical coordinates. Longitude and latitude are both angles calculated with the Earth’s center as the reference point. Longitude is the angle measured eastward from the prime meridian (longitudes to the west are considered negative). The angle between the equator and latitude is expressed in degrees (with latitudes to the south being negative).The angle between the equator and the latitude is measured in degrees (latitudes to the south are negative).
Complete answer:
A geographic coordinate that describes the north–south position of a place on the Earth’s surface is known as latitude. The angle of latitude varies from 0° at the Equator to 90° at the poles. Parallels, or lines of constant latitude, travel east–west as circles parallel to the equator.
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that indicates the east–west position of a point on the Earth’s surface or the surface of a celestial body. It is an angular measurement denoted by the Greek letter lambda and is typically expressed in degrees. Meridians are lines that link locations of the same longitude.
|
LATITUDE |
LONGITUDE |
| The geographic coordinates that specify the distance of a location north or south of the equator are known as latitude. | Longitude refers to a geographic coordinate that indicates a point’s east-west distance from the Prime Meridian. |
| It’s referred to as parallelism. | It’s referred to as meridians |
| The lines are of various lengths. | The lines are all the same length. |
| It divides the world into heat zones. | It is used to categorise time zones. |
| There are 180 lines of latitude. | There are 360 lines of longitude. |
Note: Due to the Earth’s rotation, longitude and time are closely connected. Local time (as influenced by the sun’s position, for instance) varies with longitude, with a shift of 15 degrees in longitude corresponding to a one-hour difference in local time. Longitude can be determined by comparing local time to a standardized measure of time. This absolute time can be established through a celestial event visible from both locations, such as a lunar eclipse, or by a time signal transmitted via telegraph or wireless communication, depending on the period.