Glossary
latitude and longitude
Latitude and longitude are a pair of numbers (coordinates) used to describe a position on the plane of a geographic coordinate system. The numbers are in decimal degrees format and range from -90 to 90 for latitude and -180 to 180 for longitude.
For example, Washington DC has a latitude 38.8951
and longitude -77.0364
. In API calls you will often see the numbers placed together and separated by a comma: -77.0364,38.8951
.
One common problem is mixing up the order of the coordinates. Some tools and APIs format longitude,latitude
while others use latitude,longitude
. Always check the documentation to see how you should format the coordinates. And if a point doesn't show where you expect it to — troubleshoot by switching the order!