{"id":1791607,"date":"2021-08-18T19:40:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1791607"},"modified":"2021-08-18T19:40:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T23:40:16","slug":"latitude-longitude-and-decimal-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/08\/latitude-longitude-and-decimal-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Latitude, Longitude and Decimal Points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vladimir Agafonkin\u2019s post<\/a>, which demonstrates just what latitude and longitude to x<\/em> decimal places looks like, is a visual complement to xkcd\u2019s comic about coordinate precision<\/a>: both tell you that when it comes to latitude and longitude, more than a few decimal points is pointless. \u201cAs you’ve probably guessed, 6 digits should be enough for most digital cartography needs (spanning around 10 centimeters). Maybe 7 for LiDAR, but that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vladimir Agafonkin\u2019s post, which demonstrates just what latitude and longitude to x decimal places looks like, is a visual complement to xkcd\u2019s comic about coordinate precision: both tell you that when it comes to latitude… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,752],"tags":[1531],"class_list":["post-1791607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-cartography","category-navigation","tag-lat-long","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2427,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/07\/after-the-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":0},"title":"After the Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 July 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"William Rankin's\u00a0After the Map: Cartography, Navigation, and the Transformation of Territory in the Twentieth Century is out this month from the University of Chicago Press\u00a0(Amazon,\u00a0iBooks).\u00a0The book's website explains in depth what it's about, and makes\u00a0all the book's illustrations\u00a0and data available for free download.\u00a0[GIS Lounge] This book can be read at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"after-the-map","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/after-the-map-209x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1818301,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/09\/what3words-confusion-rate-under-scrutiny\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":1},"title":"What3Words Confusion Rate Under Scrutiny","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 September 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"The What3Words geocoding service assigns a three-word mapcode to every three-square-metre patch on the planet, the premise being that three words are easier to remember and share than longitude and latitude to the equivalent decimal places. But the main complaint about What3Words (apart from the proprietary nature of its algorithm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/null-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":2},"title":"Null Island","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Zero degrees longitude, zero degrees latitude is literally nowhere: situated in the middle of the open ocean, off the coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, the only thing to mark its presence is a weather observation buoy\u00a0[via].\u00a0But it's also a\u00a0significant set of coordinates, in that it's the location\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/zero-zero.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3775,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/01\/dirty-reprojectors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":3},"title":"Dirty Reprojectors","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 January 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Maps online invariably use the Web Mercator projection. The Dirty Reprojectors\u00a0project aims to change that, at least in Mapbox. Anand Thakker\u00a0explains. Almost all web mapping libraries render maps using Web Mercator, making an assumption that you generally can\u2019t change out-of-the-box. This has\u00a0advantages, but it posed a real challenge for us\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1833379,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/08\/null-island-as-easter-egg\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":4},"title":"Null Island as Easter Egg","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 August 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Stamen Maps Null Island is an inside joke among cartographers: an imagined island situated at 0\u00b0 latitude, 0\u00b0 longitude, where maps suffering from data glitches point themselves. If your map is centred on Null Island, something has gone wrong. So of course mapmakers have been having some fun with it\u2014after\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/null-island-stamen.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1817649,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/07\/whoops-made-all-longitudes-positive\/","url_meta":{"origin":1791607,"position":5},"title":"‘Whoops, Made All Longitudes Positive’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"31 July 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"The latest in Randall Munroe\u2019s Bad Map Projection series on xkcd is perhaps his most evil yet: it turns all longitudes positive\u2014i.e., it turns west longitude into east longitude, putting Quebec somewhere in Kazakhstan and the Panama Canal off Sri Lanka.","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"xkcd:Bad Map Projection: ABS(Longitude)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/bad_map_projection_abs_longitude.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/bad_map_projection_abs_longitude.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/bad_map_projection_abs_longitude.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/bad_map_projection_abs_longitude.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1791608,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791607\/revisions\/1791608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}