Latitude Latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the Earth's surface. Latitude is an angle (defined below) which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° (North or South) at the poles. Lines of constant latitude, or "parallels", run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the precise location of features on the surface of the Earth. On its own, the term latitude should be taken to be the "geodetic latitude" as defined below. Briefly, geodetic latitude at a point is the angle
Latitude ellipsoid and the distance . This height differs from the height above the geoid or a reference height such as that above mean sea level at a specified location. The direction of will also differ from the direction of a vertical plumb line. The relation of these different heights requires knowledge of the shape of the geoid and also the gravity field of the Earth. The geocentric latitude is the complement of the polar angle in conventional spherical polar coordinates in which the coordinates of a point are where is the distance of from the centre , is the angle