Why are longitudes negative

Is North positive or negative longitude? Is West negative or positive? Why is there a negative sign in longitude? Can you have negative coordinates? Which is long and LAT? Are all longitudes negative? Which is negative lat or long? What are negative longitudes?

Is South Positive or negative? Does current flow from negative to positive? Which directions are positive and which are negative? Is Deposit positive or negative? What can zero represent in real world application problems?

Why is 0 not positive or negative? What is the opposite of 8? Where is the opposite of 8 located on a number line? What is the reciprocal of the number 8? Previous Article What does the Constitution say about health insurance? Next Article What is under the Sphinx paw? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Cardinal Directions [closed] Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 10 months ago. Active 4 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 63k times. Improve this question. Deepak Deepak 4 4 gold badges 11 11 silver badges 22 22 bronze badges.

I'm closing this question as off-topic because it is not about a practical programming problem as outlined in the help center. Might be on-topic here: gis. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. If it is likely that more locational information will be added, and that the datum and ellipsoid will be different, it would be better to put the information in individual fields associated with each row. Branch of Geospatial Data Services. Information Resources and Technology Management.

Name Latitude and Longitude Description A numeric description of a real geographic location on the earth's surface, defined by two coordinate values latitude and longitude in decimal degree format.

There must be two separate fields, one each for latitude and longitude, but for either to have any value you must have both. In addition, information on the datum and ellipsoid associated with the coordinates is needed see Use Instructions.

NNNNNNNN, where each N indicates a digit with a value of 0 through 9 or a negative indicator; the number may be positive or negative depending on the location on the globe. The negative sign must come at the beginning of the number. All 8 decimal places may not be needed for less precise data, but at least 5 should be supplied if at all possible. Latitude values require no more than 3 spaces to the left of the decimal place, while longitude values may use up to 4.

This system treats the globe as if it were a sphere or spheroid. The sphere is divided into equal parts called degrees. Each degree can be further subdivided into 60 minutes, each composed of 60 seconds.