longitude : Java Glossary

A way of describing a point on the earth’s surface as a positive angle east of the prime meridian in Greenwich England 0..180° or a negative angle west of the prime meridian of the equator 0..-180°

For computation, you might use double fractional degrees, or radians. For display, you usually display as integral degrees, minutes and seconds (or second.fractions of seconds) of arc.

For computation, you might use double fractional degrees, or radians. For display, you usually display as integral degrees, minutes and seconds (or second.fractions of seconds) of arc.

One way of displaying the values is Latitude N+48° 26’ 188”, Longitude W-123° 21’ 158”. or Latitude N+48° 26’ 188”, Longitude W-123° 21’ 158”in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).

Some people prefer to put the N or W at the end. Since it is the most significant part of the value, I think it belongs at the left end, as does Google.

Some people leave out the N and W and use only + and - signs. Others use only signs without the N and W.

We need an ISO (International Standards Organisation) standard latitude/longitude format!

A GPS (Global Positioning System) unit can calculate the current longitude by triangulating satellite signals. In the days of sailing ships, determining longitude depended on having an accurate clock so that you could compare the time of day from observing the sun with the time back home at the prime meridian.

There are commercial databases so that you can guess the longitude of a server from its IP (Internet Protocol).