Lines of Latitude and Longitude

1How does a pilot find Kigali?

Keza's aunt is a pilot. Keza asks her, "When there are clouds everywhere, how do you find Kigali?" Her aunt shows her a screen in the plane with two numbers on it: 1.95° S and 30.12° E. "These two numbers," she says, "are Kigali's address on the whole planet."

2An imaginary grid

Maps and globes are covered with an imaginary grid of lines. They are not painted on the ground, but they help us describe exactly where any place is. There are two kinds of lines: lines of latitude and lines of longitude. Both are measured in degrees (°).

3Lines of latitude

• They go around the Earth from west to east, like belts. They are also called parallels, because they never meet.
• They measure how far a place is north or south of the Equator.
• The Equator is 0°. It divides the Earth into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.
• The North Pole is 90° N and the South Pole is 90° S.
• Other important lines of latitude are the Tropic of Cancer (about 23½° N), the Tropic of Capricorn (about 23½° S), the Arctic Circle (about 66½° N) and the Antarctic Circle (about 66½° S).
• Lines of latitude get shorter as they get closer to the poles.

4Lines of longitude

• They run from the North Pole to the South Pole. They are also called meridians.
• They measure how far a place is east or west of the Prime Meridian.
• The Prime Meridian is 0°. It passes through Greenwich, in London. It divides the Earth into the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere.
• Longitude goes up to 180° east and 180° west. The 180° line is on the other side of the world from Greenwich, in the Pacific Ocean.
• All lines of longitude are the same length, and they all meet at the poles.

5Latitude and longitude side by side

Rwanda lies just south of the Equator and east of the Prime Meridian, so it is in the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres.

Try it yourself