Agriculture Reference
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zero degrees (0°). As you travel north toward the North Pole latitudes are
designated so many degrees north such as 20° north, 56° north, all the
way to 90° north when you reach the North Pole. Traveling south, below
the equator, the latitude designations are 20° south, 56° south, until you
reach the South Pole positioned at latitude 90° south. See Figure 6.6.
Earth's Axis
Greenwich, England
0º Longitude
Prime Meridian
39ºN 95ºW
Showing the
angular
nature of the
Latitude and
Longitude.
Figure 6.6 Longitude and latitude
Lines of longitude run perpendicular to the equator and converge
at either pole. The reference line established for longitude is a line that
runs through Greenwich, England, and is designated as zero. Traveling
west, longitude lines are designated 0° to 180° west; conversely, those
traveling east from the Greenwich meridian are designated 0° to 180°
east. So referring back to Figure 6.5-C, the buried treasure is located in
the Southern Hemisphere, noted by its 10°S latitude coordinate, and is
close to the opposite side of the earth from Greenwich, England, with its
162°W longitude coordinate.
While the system of geographic coordinates is in common use for
crossing oceans, other systems are used to facilitate the work done by
civil engineers, land surveyors, and landscape architects. Longstanding
systems have been established for use in locating and describing prop-
erty lines and subdivisions, and for just about any situation involving
land ownership, land surveying and topography, and site design and
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