Coordinates

 18/10/2016

Coordinates
Bimester 1 Proyect

Hello my name is Franciny Fu and I am going to show you about coordinates like what is a coordinates, it's functions and it's types.

What is a coordinate?

Coordinates are imaginary lines on the earth´s surface that make an intersection of the lines called longitude and latitude and whose intersection determines the geographical point of a place.

Longitude and latitude  

Longitude is an angular distance that goes around the globe horizontally from east to west measured from the Greenwich or prime meridian, and expressed either in degrees or by some corresponding difference in time.

Latitude is the imaginary line that goes around the globe vertically from the north to south starting from the equator of a point on the earth's surface, measured on the meridian of the point.  

Minutes and seconds 

Did you know that for precision purposes, degrees of longitude and latitude have been divided into minutes and seconds. There are 60 minutes in each degree. Each minute is divided into 60 seconds. And seconds re further divided into tenths, hundredths, or even thousandths.

Geographic coordinate systems

A geographic coordinate system (GCS) uses a three- dimensional spherical  surface to define locations on the earth. A GCS includes an angular unit of measure, a prime meridian, and a datum (based on a spheroid).

The latitude and longitude can cover globe to make a grid, that is called a graticule. The point of the graticule is (0.0), where it is the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian.

It is also difficult to be able to know the length of the latitude using a graticule because they are lines that become smaller the nearer they are to the poles. That´s why because there is no uniform length of degrees of latitude and longitude because the distance between the points can´t be measured accurately with angular units of measure.

These are the different dimensions between locations on the graticule.

A coordinate system can be defined as a sphere or spheroid because earth´s shape is not perfectly round and a spheroid can maintain the accuracy of a map, and the differences are that a spheroid is based on the ellipse and a sphere is based in a circle.

A datum are values that defines what the position of the spheroid is in the center of the earth. The datum measures the locations and defines the start or origin of latitude and longitude.

Map projections

To  be able to create the position of a geographic location, a map projection is used to make geometric coordinates into two-dimensional coordinates on a map.

My personal opinion

I think coordinates are really important because they help maps to draw correctly the longitudes and latitudes on a map and i also think coordinates are like a base to be able to draw maps because without them we can´t draw maps correctly likes the ones we see now.

And coordinates help us understand earth´s surface more and thanks to that we know about the shape, longitude, latitude, how they are measured, etc. I also think we will know where the continent should be placed or where are they are placed because the coordinates can guide them.

So i think coordinates gives us a great opportunity to learn about earth and i wish that many people would learn more about coordinates through this blog. 

References

Answers.com. (2016). Why are coordinates important. [online] Available at: http://www.answers.com/Q/Why_are_coordinates_important?#slide=3 [Accessed 17 Oct. 2016].

En.wikipedia.org. (2016). Geographic coordinate system. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinate_system [Accessed 17 Oct. 2016].

Ibm.com. (2016). IBM Knowledge Center. [online] Available at: http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPEK_10.0.0/spatl/src/tpc/spatl_csb3022a.html [Accessed 16 Oct. 2016].