Question

How do latitudes and longitudes help in locating a point? Why is only one of them insufficient in doing this?

Answer 1

Hint: Latitudes are defined as angles which specify the north-south position of a point on the Earth’s surface while Longitudes specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth’s surface.

Complete stepwise solution The values of the Latitude angles range from \[{{0}^{0}}\] which is the value at the equator to \[{{90}^{0}}\] which is the value at the (north and south poles). The longitudes are also measured in angles just like the latitudes and the \[{{0}^{0}}\] value is for the prime meridian that passes from the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, England and meridians are lines running from pole to pole that connects points with same longitudes. The latitudes and longitudes together form a grid in which the position of a place can be located. However, the latitudes alone or the longitudes alone cannot find the exact position of a point because they are parallel to each other and hence are unable to give exact information.

Notes A location’s north-south position along the meridian is given by the latitude and is approximately equal to the local vertical and the equatorial plane. Longitude is generally given by the geometrical or astronomical vertical. This can differ slightly from the gravitational vertical because of the small variation in the earth’s gravitational field. The geodetic latitude is the angle between the normal and the equatorial plane. This definition is adopted when the word latitude is used without any quantification.