Tag: Meridian

A meridian (or line of longitude) is an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface from the North Pole to the South Pole that connects all locations along it with a given longitude. The position of a point along the meridian is given by its latitude. Each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude. Each is also the same size, being half of a great circle on the Earth’s surface and therefore measuring 20,003.93 km (12,429.9 miles).
The meridian through Greenwich, England, also called the Prime Meridian was set at zero degrees of longitude, with other meridians being defined by the angle at the center of the earth between where it and the prime meridian cross the equator. As there are 360 degrees in a circle, the meridian on the opposite side of the earth from Greenwich, forming the other half of a circle with the one through Greenwich, is 180° longitude, and the others lie between 0° and 180° of West longitude in the Western Hemisphere (West of Greenwich) and between 0° and 180°…