English

Noun

longitudes

1. Plural of longitude

Longitude , symbolized by the Greek character lambda (λ), is the east-west (Side to Side) geographic coordinate measurement most commonly used in cartography and global navigation. A line of longitude is a meridian and half of a great circle.

History

Mariners and explorers for most of history struggled to determine precise longitude. Latitude was calculated by observing with quadrant or astrolabe the inclination of the sun or of charted stars, but longitude presented no such manifest means of study. Amerigo Vespucci was perhaps the first to proffer a solution, after devoting a great deal of time and energy studying the problem during his sojourns in the New World.

• Cardinal direction
• Geotagging
• Geodetic system
• Geographic coordinate system
• Great-circle distance
• History of longitude
• Lunar distance (navigation)
• Sextant
• World Geodetic System

External links

• Resources for determining your latitude and longitude
• Worldwide Index - Tageo.com – contains 2,700,000 coordinates of places including US towns
  • for each city it gives the satellite map location, country, province, coordinates (dd,dms), variant names and nearby places.
• IAU/IAG Working Group On Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements of the Planets and Satellites
• Latitude and longitude converter – Convert latitude and longitude from degree, decimal form to degree, minutes, seconds form and vice versa. Also included a farthest point and a distance calculator.