What is longitude? What is latitude? Degrees and minutes Back to early navigation Teach yourself navigation Look up the glossary Back to Main Menu

Captain Bennett explains LONGITUDE this way: "Take a string and put one end at the north pole and the other end at the south pole of a globe. That represents longitude. Notice how it is the same length no matter where you stretch the string around to globe?" There are 360 degrees of longitude around our Earth. Zero (where we start counting from) is in Greenwich, England. From here on I will show degrees using the ° character. (° = degrees) Here is a picture that might help. (back to top)

Captain Bennett explains LATITUDE this way: "Now take a string and put it around the middle of the globe sideways. The string is now at the equator. Notice that this time it does change the length of string used if you slide the string up and down the globe." There are 90° of latitude between the equator and each of Earth's poles. The equator is at zero degrees (0°) latitude. Lets do a little maths. 90+90+90+90=360   (back to top)

The lines (or degrees) of latitude and longitude allow us to make a grid of the Earth so that we can assign a set of numbers to represent about where we are.

About is not good enough for navigation. History to the rescue again! The grid has been divided up to have even smaller divisions or lines called minutes. Just like the minutes on a clock, there are sixty (60) of them between each of the lines of latitude and longitude. Now the grid is shaping up into something we can successfully use in navigating. From here on minutes will be shown using the ' character. (' = minutes)