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What Is Grid In Geography

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Meridians: Lines Of Longitude

Earth’s Geographic Grid | Physical Geography Lab Instructional Video

Lines of longitude, also known as meridians, are imaginary lines that run vertically in a north-south direction from the poles. The meridians come together and meet at the poles, and have their widest separation at the Equator. Most maps show measurements of these lines in increments of 30 degrees. Lines of longitude indicate how far east or west you are of the Prime Meridian.

What Do U Mean By Grid System

A grid system in graphic design uses a two-dimensional framework to align and lay out design elements. Breaking down a single design space into a grid can help position individual components in ways that can catch the eye, create a user flow and make information and visuals more appealing and accessible to audiences.

How Can The Geographic Grid Help Locate A Place

The grid helps people locate places on the map. On small-scale maps, the grid is often made up of latitude and longitude lines. Latitude lines run east-west around the globe, parallel to the Equator, an imaginary line that circles the middle of the Earth. Longitude lines run north-south, from pole to pole.

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How The Prime Meridian Was Selected

Before a prime meridian was agreed upon, map makers usually began numbering the lines of longitude on their maps at whichever meridian passed through the site of their national observatory. In the United States, for example, this was the Naval Observatory at Washington, D.C. in France, the Paris Observatory and in Great Britain, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, at Greenwich.

Since Britain was a world leader in exploration and map making, navigators of other nations often used British maps. As a result, in 1884 the meridian of Greenwich was adopted throughout most of the world as the prime meridian. In the 1950s the royal Greenwich Observatory was moved about 60 miles southeast of Greenwich. The Greenwich meridian, however, remained the prime meridian.

There was still another reason for the selection of the Greenwich meridian as 0° longitude. Travelers must change time by an entire day when they cross the 180th meridian. If this meridian crossed a large country, timekeeping and the establishment of calendar dates would be difficult. But with the Greenwich meridian set at zero, the 180th meridian is near the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It crosses only a small land area in northeastern Asia and divides some island groups in the Pacific.

To avoid differing dates in those areas, the nations of the world established a special line across which dates change. It swerves from the 180th meridian whenever convenient. This line is called the international date line.

Parallels Or Lines Of Latitude

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Figure 1.4 Noted Lines of Latitude

The equator is the largest circle of latitude on Earth. The equator divides the earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and is called 0 degrees latitude. The other lines of latitude are numbered from 0 to 90 degrees going toward each of the poles. The lines north of the equator toward the North Pole are north latitude, and each of the numbers is followed by the letter N. The lines south of the equator toward the South Pole are south latitude, and each of the numbers is followed by the letter S. The equator is the only line of latitude without any letter following the number. Notice that all lines of latitude are parallel to the equator and that the North Pole equals 90 degrees N and the South Pole equals 90 degrees S. Noted parallels include both the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, which are 23.5 degrees from the equator. At 66.5 degrees from the equator are the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle near the North and South Pole, respectively.

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Grid In Geography Topic

Section Four: Latitude And Longitude

For as long as humans have had the goal to explore our planet, they have also had the need to devise a navigation method to make this process easier, and more importantly, a method which was reliable and repeatable. As these exploration and discovery missions took explorers over longer distances and away from land, which is super handy for sighting back to and knowing where you are, a world-wide system that could be used day or night was needed. With a rather long history of discovery, trail, and error, latitude and longitude became a world-wide grid system, giving an explorer the ability to know where they were at all times, with a general error of about 10 feet. Not too bad without a GPS receiver!

Latitude and longitude is an and is just one example of a geographic grid, utilizing a specific principle meridian, the Prime Median, and degrees as the angular unit of measure to label and later be able to navigate to locations on the Earths surface.

Geographic grids, it should be noted, are not a complete geographic coordinate system nor are they a datum. Latitude and longitude, albeit the most common – is not the only geographic grid out there. All of this reading is working towards the established goal of creating a tied down, worldwide “address system” we call a geographic coordinate system. The GCS is made up of two parts, one of which is a datum and the other of which is geographic grid .

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Finding Latitude And Longitude

The navigator of a ship or an airplane can determine latitude by using an instrument called a sextant. With it the navigator measures the altitude of the Sun as the Sun transits, or crosses, the meridian .

The navigator then calculates the latitude by combining the observed altitude with information from an almanaca book of data about the movement of the Sun and stars. In the evening, latitude may similarly be found by observing stars .

Longitude is more difficult to determine than latitude because the sextant and the almanac together do not yield enough information. To calculate longitude, a navigator must also know the exact time at which the observations are made. The time is needed because the Sun and stars, as they appear to move across the sky, look the same at all places in a given latitude at some time during each day.

Shipboard chronometers are set to show GMT. Because of the speed and direction of the Earths rotation, local time at a given place will be one hour behind GMT for every 15 degrees west of the prime meridian and one hour ahead of GMT for every 15 degrees east of the prime meridian. For example, if a ships chronometer reads 0300 and the ships local time is 0800 , the ship is 75 degrees east of Greenwich, or at 75° E. Special radio time signals allow navigators to check the accuracy of their chronometers.

Why Do We Need To Locate A Place On Earth

Chapter 2 – Maps & Geographic Grid Systems

Location is very important this is because it enables us to know the precise place of an archaeological site, human settlement, town, village or city. An absolute location is a depiction of the exact site on an objective coordinate system i.e grid which mostly is the longitude and latitude on the map.

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Additional Resources For Latitude And Longitude

YouTube Break: The Clock That Changed the World

An explanation of using time for navigation and satellite navigation .

Run Time: 29 minutes, but really well done and quite interesting. Highly recommended to better understand the geographic grid that is longitude and latitude.

  • Note: SatNav = GPS Receiver

Why There Is No Higher Latitude Other Than 90 Degrees North And South

Latitude is the angular distance from the plane of the Equator. Latitude only has to cover 180 degrees, from the North Pole to the South Pole. All circles make a maximum angle of 900 from the plane of the Equator. Therefore the maximum, latitude is 900 N in the Northern hemisphere and 900 S in the Southern Hemisphere.

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What Is Earth Grid Short Answer

Earth grids are the mixture of both longitudes and latitudes . These grids helps us in finding a location by the measure of the longitude and latitude. Grid systems are used to describe the location of a point on a map in a universal manner. rosariomividaa3 and 6 more users found this answer helpful.

The Branches Of Geography

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Geography can be regarded as an interdisciplinary science. The subject encompasses an interdisciplinary perspective that allows the observation and analysis of anything distributed in Earth space and the development of solutions to problems based on such analysis. The discipline of geography can be divided into several branches of study. The primary classification of geography divides the approach to the subject into the two broad categories of physical geography and human geography.

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What Is Grid In Geography For Kids

A system of lines is used to find the location of any place on the surface of the Earth. Commonly called a grid system, it is made up of two sets of lines that cross each other. One setlines of latituderuns in an east-west direction. The other setlines of longituderuns in a north-south direction.

Parallels: Lines Of Latitude

Lines of latitude, also known as parallels, run horizontally in an east-west direction. In measuring coordinates, you use these lines to determine where you are in a north-south direction. These lines run around the Earth along and parallel to the Equator, which runs around the widest part of the planet. Essentially, they help you determine how far north or south of the Equator you are!

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Special Lines Of Latitude And Longitude

Several lines of latitude have special significance. One of these is the equator. Two other special lines of latitude are the 30th parallels. The area between them, straddling the equator, is commonly referred to as the low latitudes. The low latitudes are generally warm lands. The two 60th parallels are also special lines of latitude.

The areas north and south of the 60th parallels, which center on the North and South poles, are commonly referred to as the high latitudes. The high latitudes are generally cold lands.

The areas between the 30th and 60th parallels in both hemispheres are commonly referred to as the middle latitudes. Generally, middle-latitude lands have four seasonsfall, winter, spring, and summer.

The latitude of a place, accordingly, is a clue of its climate. The yearly average of insolation, or heat energy received from the Sun, depends in large measure on the angle or slant of the Suns rays. This angle varies with distance from the equator . Regions in high latitudes, both north and south, get less insolation and are therefore usually colder than regions in low latitudes.

The only special line of longitude is the prime meridian. Time zone boundaries and the international date line are based on certain lines of longitude but do not follow them exactly.

What Is A Geographic Grid

Geography Map Skills: Grid Reference

The geographic grid is a system designed to pinpoint any location on Earth by laying a vertical and horizontal grid over the Earths layout. The vertical lines are called the longitude and the horizontal lines are the latitude. The intersection of these two points determines any exact location.

The geographic grid is fundamental to the study of geography because its medium of communication relies so heavily on the use of maps. The lines are a man-made invention based off the location of the north and south poles.

Latitudinal lines measure degrees north to south, with 0 degrees being the exact halfway point between the north and south poles. Longitudinal lines measure degrees east to west, running vertically between the north and south poles.

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Creating A Complete Geographic Grid

Now that we have looked at how the Earth-fixed, Earth-centered coordinate system is established for latitude and longtiude, we need turn the sphere-based system in to an ellipsoid based system to complete the geographic grid. We learned in Section Three that the Earth is best represented by an ellipsoid of revolution, more specifically, an oblate spheroid and the geoid is best represented by an ellipsoid. In Section Four, we learned the definiton of a geodetic datum is combining a geoid with a reference ellipsoid, connecting them via control points. In order to keep on-track with our definitions, we need to transform the sphere used to create the EFEC latitude/longitude coordinate system into not an oblate spheroid, as we are not trying to represent the Earth, but instead into an ellipsoid to best-fit inside the geoid via a method called affine transformation. Affine transformation is a means of changing a sphere into an ellipsoid while maintaining straight lines.

After we took all the time to carefully create the lines of latiude and longitude and we understand they are used to grid-out and label locations on the Earth’s surface, we’d like to take that hard work and preserve it over in the reference ellipsoid. All we are really doing is linearly streching the measurement of the radius into a semi-minor and a different semi-major axis. By increasing the measurements of the radius, we are able to create an ellipsoid without curving the straight lines.

How Do I Make A Grid Map

Using the ruler, draw a rectangle on the map around the entire city area. Divide the rectangle into 1-inch grid squares. Beginning at the bottom, measure up 1 inch and draw a parallel line from left to right on the horizontal. Measure up another inch and draw a parallel line until you have less than 1 inch to the top.

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How To Read Ordnance Survey National Grid References

National Grid references are used to accurately pinpoint your location on an Ordnance Survey map. A series of faint blue lines on every map makes up a numbered grid that is used to create the National Grid reference. This is a simple way of finding points and places on a map, to give to others as a meeting location or to quote if you get into trouble and need to specify exactly where you are.You may find a variety of terms used to describe National Grid references, such as OS grid ref, grid reference, OS map ref or simply just map reference. While the correct term for these is National Grid reference, these terms all mean the same thing however, as well see, grid references can be given in a number of different formats.

Custom Overlay Reference Grids

Teaching Map Grids with FREE Printable!

You can create custom overlay reference gridsthat use the geometry of a line or polygon data source to definethe grid lines and an attribute column in this same feature classto specify the labels. A custom overlay grid allows you to superimpose anirregular or specialized reference system.

You might use custom overlay grids if you want to create grids for the following:

  • Boundaries of a U.S. state plane coordinate system zone
  • Boundaries of a world geographic reference system
  • Boundaries of the extents of OperationalNavigation Chart or Joint Operations Graphic maps
  • Boundaries of the U.S. Geological Survey quad sheets at the various scales at which they are produced
  • Boundaries of the extents of International Map ofthe World map sheets
  • Boundaries of world time zones and UTMzones
  • When using the Military Grid Reference System, which includesthe grid zones and 100,000-meter boundaries necessary to refer to alocation using MGRS coordinates
Caution:

Custom overlay grids do not handle cases where the map crosses UTM zones. If your map crosses a UTM zone, you should consider using a Grid and Graticule layer.

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How Does Grid Help To Locate A Place

The grid helps people locate places on the map. On small-scale maps, the grid is often made up of latitude and longitude lines. Latitude lines run east-west around the globe, parallel to the Equator, an imaginary line that circles the middle of the Earth. Longitude lines run north-south, from pole to pole.

What Is A Grid In Math Terms

Grid: is evenly divided and equally spaced squares on a figure or flat surface. Math Grid: is another name for the coordinate plane consisting of a space of small squares, sometimes with an x-axis and y-axis. Coordinate Grid: A coordinate grid has two perpendicular lines or axes, labeled like number lines.

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What Do You Need To Locate A Place On The Globe

Any point on earth can be located by specifying its latitude and longitude, including Washington, DC, which is pictured here. Lines of latitude and longitude form an imaginary global grid system, shown in Fig. 1.17. Any point on the globe can be located exactly by specifying its latitude and longitude.

Mgrs And Us National Grid

How to read Maps – Grid References (Geography Skills)

The Military Grid Reference System is a grid-based system used to represent locations on the universal transverse Mercator and universal polar stereographic coordinate systems, expressed as an alphanumeric string. An MGRS coordinate defines an area on the Earth’s surface as opposed to a specific point. A fully qualified MGRS string is 15 characters long and consists of the following three components: grid zone designation, 100,000-meter square identifier, and easting/northing.

There are two methods for adding an MGRS or U.S. National Grid overlay to your map. If you need a dynamic grid that updates automatically as you pan and zoom, you can use the data frame grid properties with an MGRS or U.S. National Grid overlay grid. However, if you need to do one of the following, you will need to utilize a Grid and Graticule layer:

  • Display the MGRS or U.S. National Grid in a coordinate system other than UTM
  • Display UTM labels when your area of interest crosses UTM zones
  • Display multiple MGRS or U.S. National Grid overlays within a single layout
  • Display the MGRS or U.S. National Grid for rotated and nonrectangular areas of interest
  • Change the MGRS or U.S. National Grid interval
  • Place interior ladder labels for alternate intervals

Grid and Graticule layers support these complex grid and graticule scenarios. However, they are not dynamic and will not update as you pan and zoom.

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