Latitude, Longitude, and Time Zones

Lat. and Long. form a grid

The point of latitude and longitude is be able to pinpoint any location on the Earth.

They form a grid that should look kind of familiar…

Latitude Lines

Latitude lines: Are parallel (never meet or touch) Run East to West Range from 0°–90° North and South Dumb way to remember:▪ Latitude = “Laddertude”

Important Lines Of Latitude Equator

Half-way between North and South Poles 0 ° , Neither North nor South

Tropic of Cancer 23.5° North

Tropic of Capricorn 23.5° South

Arctic Circle 66.5° North

Antarctic Circle 66.5° South

Yes, these are important and we will talk about them further later on.

Longitude Lines

Longitude lines: All meet at the North and South Poles Run North to South Range from 0°–180° East and West Dumb way to remember:▪ Longitude = Long, tall telephone poles

Important Lines Of Longitude

Prime Meridian Runs through Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England 0°, neither East nor West

International Date Line Opposite Prime Meridian 180°, both East and West

Putting the coordinates together

Latitude, Longitude For example:

Farmington, Utah 40°N, 111°W

The inhabited continents kind of match up with the grid.

N,W - All of North America

•S, W – Most of South America

•N,E – Most of Europe, Africa, and Asia•S, E – All of Australia and a chunk of Africa

Time Zones

360° ÷ 24 hours = 15° longitude for every hour of the day.

But because countries and states don’t match the longitude lines perfectly, we’ve tweaked the time zone lines to fit our needs.

West is less!

LA is three hours behind New York. You need to be able to convert times to local time by looking at

a map.