paralelos

Paralelos is the plural form of the word paralelo in Spanish and Portuguese and is used to describe lines that run in the same direction and do not intersect when extended in a plane. The term also appears in geography and cartography as a name for lines of latitude.

In geometry, two lines are parallel if they lie in the same plane and do not meet, regardless of how far they extend. Parallel lines have the same direction and a constant distance between them. In Euclidean geometry, this behavior is governed by the parallel postulate; in non-Euclidean geometries, parallels can behave differently, such as the existence of multiple parallels through a point in hyperbolic space or the absence of parallels in elliptic space.

Parallels of latitude describe imaginary east–west lines around the globe that measure latitude. They are numbered from 0° at the equator to ±90° at the poles. The distance between adjacent parallels along a given meridian is about 111 kilometers per degree, while the length of a degree of longitude decreases toward the poles because meridians converge.

Beyond geometry and geography, the concept of parallels appears in other fields. In computing, parallel processing uses multiple processors to perform tasks simultaneously, increasing throughput. In mapping and navigation, parallels form a coordinate grid with meridians to locate positions on the Earth’s surface.