Determination of a place on the map by geographer coordinates. Determining coordinates on the map - Russia. Accuracy of determining geographical coordinates

Latitude and longitude are a kind of address and are measured in degrees. For a more accurate definition, smaller units are added to degrees - minutes and seconds.
Why are such difficulties necessary? It's very simple. Imagine that you find yourself in an unfamiliar area, where there are no significant landmarks within sight. How to determine your location? The only option is geographic coordinates.

When indicating coordinates, if necessary, decimal digits can be used, both in degrees and in minutes and seconds. This allows you to determine the location of a point with an accuracy of several meters.
When using coordinates, it will be quite useful to know the following data:
- one degree of latitude is equal to approximately one hundred and eleven kilometers;
- one minute of latitude is 1.85 km;
- one second is 0.03 km, that is, it is approximately 30 meters.
The size of longitude decreases as you approach the pole. For example, at 45° latitude, a degree of longitude is approximately 79 kilometers. As you approach the pole, this figure will decrease, tending to 0.

And it allows you to find the exact location of objects on the earth’s surface degree network- a system of parallels and meridians. It serves to determine the geographic coordinates of points on the earth's surface - their longitude and latitude.

Parallels(from Greek parallelos- walking nearby) are lines conventionally drawn on the earth's surface parallel to the equator; equator - a line of section of the earth's surface by the depicted plane passing through the center of the Earth perpendicular to its axis of rotation. The longest parallel is the equator; the length of the parallels from the equator to the poles decreases.

Meridians(from lat. meridianus- midday) - lines conventionally drawn on the earth's surface from one pole to another along the shortest path. All meridians are equal in length. All points of a given meridian have the same longitude, and all points of a given parallel have the same latitude.

Rice. 1. Elements of the degree network

Geographic latitude and longitude

Geographic latitude of a point is the magnitude of the meridian arc in degrees from the equator to a given point. It varies from 0° (equator) to 90° (pole). There are northern and southern latitudes, abbreviated as N.W. and S. (Fig. 2).

Any point south of the equator will have a southern latitude, and any point north of the equator will have a northern latitude. Determining the geographic latitude of any point means determining the latitude of the parallel on which it is located. On maps, the latitude of parallels is indicated on the right and left frames.

Rice. 2. Geographical latitude

Geographic longitude of a point is the magnitude of the parallel arc in degrees from the prime meridian to a given point. The prime (prime, or Greenwich) meridian passes through the Greenwich Observatory, located near London. To the east of this meridian the longitude of all points is eastern, to the west - western (Fig. 3). Longitude varies from 0 to 180°.

Rice. 3. Geographical longitude

Determining the geographic longitude of any point means determining the longitude of the meridian on which it is located.

On maps, the longitude of the meridians is indicated on the upper and lower frames, and on the map of the hemispheres - on the equator.

The latitude and longitude of any point on Earth make up its geographical coordinates. Thus, the geographical coordinates of Moscow are 56° N. and 38°E

Geographic coordinates of cities in Russia and CIS countries

There are many good cartographic resources on the global Internet that allow you to explore a particular area on a map, and, if necessary, see what it looks like from a bird’s eye view thanks to satellite images. Many of them allow you to determine the coordinates of a point on the map due to the fact that they can work with geographic coordinates. They help to determine the location of an object on the globe as accurately as possible, regardless of whether you are looking for it through - on the globe or on a website on the Internet. One of the most popular cartographic resources in Russia, Yandex.Maps, also perfectly understands coordinates and supports working with them.

Let's first define what geographic coordinates are. They look simple, like two numbers. In fact, these are two special angular quantities - latitude And longitude. Northern latitude is designated by the letter N for “Nord” (North), southern latitude is designated by S for South (South). The longitude can also be eastern E from "East" (East) or western - "W" from "West" (West). It is by them that today the position of objects on the surface of the planet is determined. Usually they are presented in the form of degrees, but in principle they can also be indicated in fractions. If you know the latitude and longitude of the desired point, then it will be easy to find it either on Yandex.Maps or on Google Maps.

How to determine the coordinates of a point

To find the longitude and latitude of the point you need in Yandex Maps, just find it on the map and left-click on it. A tooltip appears with the name of the geographic feature. The required numbers will be displayed at the bottom of it. Let me give you an example: I’m looking for the coordinates of the Oleg Yankovsky park in Saratov. Having found it, I click the mouse and see a hint:

Below the hint text are two numbers. Latitude comes first: 51.533689. The second is longitude: 46.002794.

As you can see, Yandex.Maps even make it possible to build a route from any place to the coordinates of the desired location.

How to enter coordinates to find a point

In the service, the opposite action is also possible - searching for a point using the entered coordinates. To do this, you need to enter latitude and longitude into the search bar, and enter geographic coordinates into Yandex. Maps need to be in this order - first latitude, then longitude. This is an international format that is accepted and used everywhere, including in Google Maps and GPS navigators.

For example, let's search for the landing site of the first cosmonaut, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. Its coordinates are 51.27168N,46.11656E. Enter them into the search bar:

We press the find button and... here it is - the landing place on the map:

Yandex Maps will help you find the point and mark it with a red marker. All the necessary information will be displayed in a separate window. If necessary, the service also makes it possible to build a route here or send a point to the Yandex.Navigator application on your phone or tablet.

Each point on the planet's surface has a specific position, which corresponds to its own latitude and longitude coordinates. It is located at the intersection of the spherical arcs of the meridian, which corresponds to longitude, with the parallel, which corresponds to latitude. It is denoted by a pair of angular quantities expressed in degrees, minutes, seconds, which has a definition of a coordinate system.

Latitude and longitude are the geographic aspect of a plane or sphere translated into topographic images. To more accurately locate a point, its altitude above sea level is also taken into account, which allows it to be found in three-dimensional space.

The need to find a point using latitude and longitude coordinates arises due to the duty and occupation of rescuers, geologists, military personnel, sailors, archaeologists, pilots and drivers, but it may also be necessary for tourists, travelers, seekers, and researchers.

What is latitude and how to find it

Latitude is the distance from an object to the equator line. Measured in angular units (such as degrees, degrees, minutes, seconds, etc.). Latitude on a map or globe is indicated by horizontal parallels - lines that describe a circle parallel to the equator and converge in the form of a series of tapering rings towards the poles.

Therefore, they distinguish between northern latitude - this is the entire part of the earth's surface north of the equator, and also southern latitude - this is the entire part of the planet's surface south of the equator. The equator is the zero, longest parallel.

• Parallels from the equator line to the north pole are considered to be a positive value from 0° to 90°, where 0° is the equator itself, and 90° is the top of the north pole. They are counted as northern latitude (N).
• Parallels extending from the equator towards the south pole are indicated by a negative value from 0° to -90°, where -90° is the location of the south pole. They are counted as southern latitude (S).
• On the globe, parallels are depicted as circles encircling the ball, which become smaller as they approach the poles.
• All points on the same parallel will be designated by the same latitude, but different longitudes.
  On maps, based on their scale, parallels have the form of horizontal, curved stripes - the smaller the scale, the straighter the parallel strip is depicted, and the larger it is, the more curved it is.

Remember! The closer to the equator a given area is located, the smaller its latitude will be.

What is longitude and how to find it

Longitude is the amount by which the position of a given area is removed relative to Greenwich, that is, the prime meridian.

Longitude is similarly characterized by measurement in angular units, only from 0° to 180° and with a prefix - eastern or western.

• The Greenwich Prime Meridian vertically encircles the globe of the Earth, passing through both poles, dividing it into the western and eastern hemispheres.
• Each of the parts located west of Greenwich (in the Western Hemisphere) will be designated west longitude (w.l.).
• Each part distant from Greenwich to the east and located in the eastern hemisphere will be designated east longitude (E.L.).
• Finding each point along the same meridian has the same longitude, but different latitude.
• Meridians are drawn on maps in the form of vertical stripes curved in the shape of an arc. The smaller the map scale, the straighter the meridian strip will be.

How to find the coordinates of a given point on the map

Often you have to find out the coordinates of a point that is located on the map in a square between the two nearest parallels and meridians. Approximate data can be obtained by eye by sequentially estimating the step in degrees between the mapped lines in the area of ​​interest, and then comparing the distance from them to the desired area. For accurate calculations you will need a pencil with a ruler, or a compass.

• For the initial data we take the designations of the parallels closest to our point with the meridian.
• Next, we look at the step between their stripes in degrees.
• Then we look at the size of their step on the map in cm.
• We measure with a ruler in cm the distance from a given point to the nearest parallel, as well as the distance between this line and the neighboring one, convert it to degrees and take into account the difference - subtracting from the larger one, or adding to the smaller one.
• This gives us the latitude.

Example! The distance between the parallels 40° and 50°, among which our area is located, is 2 cm or 20 mm, and the step between them is 10°. Accordingly, 1° is equal to 2 mm. Our point is 0.5 cm or 5 mm away from the fortieth parallel. We find the degrees to our area 5/2 = 2.5°, which must be added to the value of the nearest parallel: 40° + 2.5° = 42.5° - this is our northern latitude of the given point. In the southern hemisphere, the calculations are similar, but the result has a negative sign.

Similarly, we find longitude - if the nearest meridian is further from Greenwich, and the given point is closer, then we subtract the difference, if the meridian is closer to Greenwich, and the point is further, then we add it.

If you only have a compass at hand, then each of the segments is fixed with its tips, and the spread is transferred to the scale.

In a similar way, calculations of coordinates on the surface of the globe are carried out.