How To Find The Locator Point

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Latitude and longitude tin can exist used to decide the exact location of any point on the globe. There are several ways to find your latitude and longitude - some of which crave many more than resources than others. Find your coordinates with a map and protractor one time y'all sympathise latitude and longitude.

1. 1

   Sympathize breadth. Breadth measures how far a indicate is north or south of the equator. Since the earth is round, altitude from the equator is measured in athwart degrees with the equator beingness 0 degrees and the northernmost point -- the North Pole -- being at xc degrees. The southernmost point -- the Due south Pole -- is also at 90 degrees.^[1]

   • Latitude is measured in degrees due north when in the northern hemisphere and degrees south when in the southern hemisphere.^[2]

2. two

   Sympathise longitude. Longitude measures how far a point is due east or westward of the prime meridian -- arbitrarily set as Greenwich, England. Since the Earth is circular, distance from the prime acme is measured in angular degrees with the prime meridian being at 0 degrees longitude. As y'all move east or west, the longitude measures up to 180 degrees of the prime tiptop.^[3]

   • 180 degrees longitude is known as the international dateline.^[4]
   • Longitude is given every bit degrees eastward when in the eastern hemisphere and west when in the western hemisphere.^[5]

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3. 3

   Know the accuracy of your readings. Degrees are a large unit so to get an accurate location, longitude and latitude are divided to the decimal indicate referred to every bit decimal degrees. For instance, you may see breadth as 35.789 degrees North. Global Position Systems (GPS) often prove decimal degrees just printed maps practice not.^[6]

   • Online topographic maps express longitude and latitude decimal degrees in degrees, minutes and seconds. Each caste equals 60 minutes, while each infinitesimal equals lx seconds. The comparison to time allows for easier subdivision.^[7]

4. 4

   Sympathize how they appear on a map. Start, always assume that the pinnacle of the map is north.The numbers on the correct and left side of a map refer to the breadth. The numbers on the top and lesser of the map are the longitude.^[8]

   • Call back how to convert time in order understand a map using decimal degrees as degrees, minutes, and seconds^[9] :
     • 15 seconds = one quarter of a minute = 0.25 minutes
     • 30 seconds = half a infinitesimal = 0.5 minutes
     • 45 seconds = 3 quarters of a infinitesimal = 0.75 minutes

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1. i

   Obtain a USGS map. A U.S. Geological Survey map is standardized map created by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program under the U.S. Department of the Interior. You can find these maps at your local libraries or obtain them from surveyors or other commercial dealers.

2. two

   Look for the latitude and longitude. These measurements are oftentimes in the corner of the map. Beneath the title you may also discover how far the map covers. For example, a map may say that information technology's a 7.5 minute map, which ways that the area the map shows is seven.5 minutes of latitude and longitude.^[ten]

3. 3

   Notice the location. Depending on the scale of your map, it may take some time to find your location. Note the city, town, or specific point on the map that denotes your current position. Once found, mark your location. The map legend will tell you lot the scale of the map and then that you may quickly estimate altitude relative to known landmarks if yous exercise not know the name of your city. This may help you discover your location more than quickly.

   • Depending on what you're trying to locate, make sure y'all're using a map with an appropriate scale. If you want to observe how far a land is from your own, you would want to utilise a map of the United States rather than ane of the world.

4. four

   Employ a map ruler to cheque the degrees. Measure out from your location outwards from the map to the straightest numbered line of latitude or longitude. The map will be divided into both vertical and horizontal lines to correspond the measurements of longitude and breadth. The 4 corners of your map will display the coordinates of both the longitude and latitude fully written out. Merely the final two digits will be shown for all other points in betwixt.^[11]

   • Your map should have the lines of latitude and longitude forming a grid and dividing it into cantankerous sections. A map ruler is piece of cake to utilise and can be purchased at an outdoor supply store or online. Make sure that your map ruler corresponds to your USGS ane:24,000 scale map series.^[12]
   • Measure breadth first. The lines of latitude volition be north and south parallels to your location. Identify the zero end of your map ruler on the southern parallel. The side by side parallel to the north should be touched by the 2 ½ minute end. One edge of the ruler will be marked in minutes and seconds while the other edge is decimal minutes. Make sure to utilize the correct edge that corresponds to the coordinate format of your map. Slide the ruler to the right -- or to the w -- until it touches your location. Mark how much altitude is between the southern parallel to your location. Add together this to the latitude of the southern parallel to get the breadth of your location.^[13]
   • To measure the longitude you lot must place the ruler diagonally on the west and east meridians with the ends of the 2 ½ minute ruler touching both meridians. The lines of longitude on your map will exist the east and west meridians of your location. You lot must measure diagonally considering if yous mensurate horizontally, the ruler extends past the grid because the meridians of longitude grow closer as they movement from the equator. Move the ruler vertically until y'all detect your location making sure to keep both ends of the ruler on the meridians at a diagonal. Record where your location is -- in minutes and seconds -- westward of the eastern elevation. To find the the longitude of your location, add your measurement to the longitude of the eastern pinnacle.^[14]

5. 5

   Write your coordinates down. The standard procedure is to write the breadth first, followed past the longitude, with both written to as many decimals as possible. The more decimals you are able to attain, the more accurate and precise the location.

   • When writing down your coordinates, you may format latitude and longitude in three different ways^[15] :
     • Degrees (d.d°) - 49.5000°, -123.5000°
     • Minutes (d°m.m') - 49°30.0', -123°30.0'
     • Seconds (d°one thousand'due south) - 49°30'00"N, 123°30'00"W
   • When dealing with latitude and longitude, the North - South and East - Westward designators are removed and replaced with negative values for points southward of the equator.^[sixteen]

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1. 1

   Make sure that it is apex. Determining the latitude with the lord's day can just be washed when information technology is at its highest point. Check your watch or y'all may use the method of creating a quadrant and placing a stick in the ground, at the very southern end of a north-south line. It'southward noon every bit soon as the shadow of the stick crosses the north-south line.^[17]

   • Use a plumb line to ensure that the stick is vertical.^[18] A plumb line is exactly as it sounds: a line with any blazon of plumb attached to it. Gravity will ensure that the plumb creates a vertical line.

2. 2

   Utilize a compass to found north and s. You may only ready up your measurements knowing north and south. Mark north and south with a line running along the footing. Set up a quadrant with its aiming beam parallel to this line.

3. 3

   Create a quadrant, or cantankerous, using ii pieces of woods. The aiming beam -- or hands of the cross -- should be centered on the support axle-- or body of the cross -- so that information technology tin pivot up and downwardly. There should be iv nails at the easily of the cantankerous, each merely pounded far plenty to keep information technology stable. There should exist 2 nails at either stop of the face of the cross and 2 nails at either end of the height of the hands of the cross.^[19]

   • Center a protractor at the pivot point. Suspend the plumb line also from this pivot point.^[20]

4. 4

   Align the sighting nails of the quadrant with the sun. Once noon, line upwardly the nails on the aiming beam with the sun. Do not await directly at the lord's day but rather use the shadows of the nails to detect the correct position. Motility the aiming axle upwardly and downward and then that the 2 shadows from the nails move closer together and create a single shadow on the ground.^[21]

5. five

   Use the protractor to measure the small bending between the beam and the plumb line. One time the beam is aimed correctly, use the protractor to measure from the vertical plumb line to the portion of the aiming beam closest to information technology. Keep the horizon at 90 degrees as you make your measurements.^[22]

6. vi

   Understand that the time of year plays into the accuracy of your reading. Your reading will only be right in both the spring and autumn equinoxes that fall on March and September 21 respectively. If you are taking measurements effectually December 21, or midwinter, subtract 23.45 degrees from your reading. In dissimilarity, add 23.45 degrees if you are taking measurements effectually midsummer, June 21.^[23]

   • The measurements are not completely accurate, other than spring and autumn equinox, because of the way the World is tilted as it orbits around the sun.^[24]
   • While in that location are complex tables that give you the correct gene to determine your exact latitude and longitude on whatsoever given twenty-four hours, accurately gauge based on the date relative to the leap and autumn equinox. For example, if you lot are measuring at the start of May, which is half-fashion betwixt the spring -- when the sun is directly above the equator -- and summer equinox -- when the dominicus is above 23.45 degrees north of the Equator, you would only need to add together half of 23.45 degrees -- 11.73 -- to your measurement.^[25]

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Add together New Question

• Question

  How tin can one determine one's longitude and latitude without any technology or measurement tools?

  

  With a relatively uncomplicated tabular array of apex readings from the lord's day, it is possible to use cosine to summate your breadth position (requires an understanding of trigonometry to do so fairly effectively). Longitude is easier. If you take a rather precise spotter, fix to universal time coordinates, and discover a way to accurately make up one's mind high apex sun angle at your location. Simply verify highest sunday, note it (to the 2d) in local time, and then past subtracting your local fourth dimension from UTC time, you lot have hours and minutes. Now, knowing that longitude is basically fifteen degrees per hour, calculate your longitude.

• Question

  How exercise I decide whether information technology is north, eastward, south or w?

  

  Cardinal points: northward, south, eastward, and west. The lord's day rises in the due east and sets in the west. To understand where north, south, east, and west are, first point your left arm towards the sun in the morning.

• Question

  What instruments do I need to calculate longitude?

  

  A GPS receiver would be your best bet. While y'all could practice it with a sextant and a very practiced clock, the portable GPS receiver will be both less expensive and far more handy.

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• Yous can download apps for mobile devices to aid make up one's mind longitude and breadth including gps applications.

• Online calculators can also be used every bit a unproblematic method for calculating latitude and longitude.

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Article Summary Ten

Latitude and longitude are the vertical and horizontal axes that are used for grid coordinates. To determine your latitude, utilise a Geological Survey map and a map ruler to measure outwards from your location to the nearest numbered line of latitude. Mark the distance betwixt your location and the parallel line underneath to get the latitude of your location. To detect the longitude, place your ruler diagonally on the due west and e meridians with the ends of the 2 ½ minute ruler touching both meridians. The meridians are constant circles of longitude going effectually the world. Movement your ruler vertically until you find your location. And so, take the distance from your location to the longitude of the eastern top and add information technology to the eastern height to get the longitude. For more tips, including how to employ a protractor and compass to measure latitude and longitude, read on!

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