decimalLatitude

DecimalLatitude is a geographic coordinate that expresses a point’s north–south position on the Earth in decimal degrees. It is widely used in geographic information systems, maps, GPS data, and data exchange formats. Positive values denote locations in the Northern Hemisphere and negative values denote locations in the Southern Hemisphere. DecimalLatitude is usually used together with decimalLongitude to identify a specific location, and both values are defined relative to a geodetic datum such as WGS84.

The value range for DecimalLatitude is from -90.0 to 90.0 degrees. Precision is determined by the number of decimal places: more digits yield higher accuracy. For example, about 1.1 meters of precision is typical with five decimal places near the equator, while six decimals can reach roughly the tens of centimeters range. The actual accuracy depends on the data’s source and the underlying datum or coordinate reference system.

Conversion between decimalLatitude and other representations is common. From degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS), decimal latitude is computed as degrees plus minutes divided by 60 plus seconds divided by 3600, preserving the sign. Conversely, a decimal latitude can be converted back to DMS using standard rounding rules. It is important to note that the numeric value represents a position on the ellipsoid defined by the datum, not a raw surface distance.

Applications and considerations: DecimalLatitude is a fundamental component of coordinates in formats such as GeoJSON and CSV, and is used in navigation, mapping, and spatial analysis. Datasets should specify the datum and include both latitude and longitude to locate a point unambiguously.