What is latitude and longitude

What are latitude and longitude lines?

 Table of contents

 1.What are latitude and longitude lines?
2.Latitude Earth's Latitudinal Heat Zones
3. Longitude
4. Longitude and Time
5. Standard Time and Time Zone

 Latitude and longitude are imaginary lines from which the position of a place on earth can be ascertained.

 The shape of the Earth is in Geoid form.  For example, the condition of New Delhi is 28॰ N and 77॰ E.

 Latitude

 Latitude is the angular distance of a point on the surface, from the central part of the Earth.  It is measured in degrees.  Earth is flat on the polar parts, so the degree of latitude at the poles is greater than the equator part.

 For example, on Equator (0॰) this distance is 68.074 miles, on 45॰ this distance is 69.054 miles and on the pole it is 69.407 miles.  The average distance is 69 miles.

 Other important parts of latitude

 Other than the equatorial circle or equator (0॰), the North Pole (90॰ N) and the South Pole (90॰ S) are some other major points:

 Tropic of Cancer - It is located at 23 1/2 ॰ N in the Northern Hemisphere.

 Tropic of Capricorn - It is located in the southern hemisphere 23 1/2 ॰ S.

 Arctic Orbit - It is located at latitude 66 1/2 ॰ N north of the equator.

 Antarctic Orbit - It is located in the southern part of the equator at latitude 66 1/2 ॰ S.

 Earth's Latitudinal Heat Zones

 At all latitudes between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun is at least once a year on the midday sun.  This part of the earth gets the highest sunlight in the whole world, so it is called torrid zone.

 Except at the places between these two lines, the sun does not shine above the head at noon.  Reaching the poles, the angle of the rays of the sun keeps decreasing.

 For this reason, the temperature in the Arctic Line and the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere and the Antarctic Line and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere remain the same for most of the time.  Hence these zones are also called temperature zones.

 The northern pole and part of the Arctic shells in the northern hemisphere and the south pole and part of the Antarctic shells in the southern hemisphere are very cold regions.

 This is because the sun rays do not fall directly in these areas and do not rise above the horizon.

 Therefore, its rays are always oblique in this area.  Hence these areas are placed in the frijid zone.

 Longitude

 Longitude is a type of angular distance, measured in degrees under the eastern or western part of the standard meridian parallel to the equator.

 The longitude on the globe is shown in the form of a number of quasi-circles that travel from pole to pole cutting the equator.

 While measuring in latitude, the equatorial circle (0॰) is started, but when measuring longitude, it was started from any meridian, there was no fixed point.

 Therefore, in the year 1884, an international agreement ensured that the Royal Astronomical Observatory at Greenwich near London was considered to be 0 meridian from which all the lines of longitude cut off.

 This is the Prime Meridian, from where all the meridians spread towards both the east and west sides 180॰.  As the lines of parallel latitude decrease in the polar regions, the longitude lines which reach miles on the pole take a smaller position.

 The most important function of longitude lines is that they are used to find time for any region based on GMT or Greenwich Mean Time.  GMT has also been called World Time.

 Longitude and Time

 The Earth takes a day or 24 hours to make a round of 360॰ i.e. 1515 in an hour and 1॰ in four minutes.

 Earth rotates from west to east, that is, as soon as we set 15॰ from west to east, the time is one hour ahead.

 In the same way we go 15॰ ahead towards the west, time is one hour behind.  Therefore, we can assume that the sun rises quickly on the eastern side of Greenwich and the sun rises late in the western part.

 If you are aware of GMT, then you can easily find the time of any place.  For this, the distance traveled from a given latitude is increased or incident.

 Standard Time and Time Zone

 If every city starts keeping time according to its meridian, then there will be a big difference in the local time of that city and other cities.

 While going from one place to another in a country, one must always change the time of his watch, which is inconvenient.

 A standard time is followed by all countries to abandon such troubles.  Most countries decide the time according to their standard meridian.

 Countries that have a large area such as USA, Canada, Russia, China - it is difficult to have a standard time zone, so many are considered by region.

 There are five time zones in the USA and Canada - Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.  The difference between the Atlantic and Pacific time zones is five hours.  Russia has nine time zones.