WHAT IS LATITUDE?

 

Latitude is the angle formed by a line going from the center of the earth to the equator that is closed to the point of interest and another line that goes from the center of the earth to the parallel that goes through the point of interest.

Latitude is a measurement on a globe or map of location north or south of equator.

Lines joining places with the same latitudes are called parallels ie the lines running east to west are called parallels or lines of latitude.

Technically, there are different kinds of latitude- geocentric, astronomical, and geographic - but there are only minor differences between them.

In most common references , geocentric latitude is implied.

Given in degrees, minutes and seconds, geocentric latitude is the arc subtended by an angle at Earth's centre and measured in a north- south plane poleward from the Equator. Therefore, the greatest possible latitudes are 90degree north and 90 degree south.

The value of equator is zero degree and the latitude of the poles are 90 degree north and 90 degree south.

If parallels of latitude are drawn at an interval of one degree , there will be 89 parallels in the northern and the southern hemispheres.

The total number of parallels thus drawn including the equator will be 179.