Labs / Geography
Latitude & Longitude Finder
Drag the globe to spin it, then tap anywhere to drop a pin — the readout shows that spot's latitude and longitude in degrees and minutes. Move both pins to trace the shortest path over the curved Earth, the great-circle route, and read its distance in kilometres.
A —B —Distance —
What to try
- Where do latitude and longitude both read zero, and what is out there in the ocean at that exact spot?
- Slide a pin straight up a meridian toward the pole — why do the minutes of longitude start to matter less as you climb?
- Put one pin near New York and the other near Tokyo. Why does the shortest line arc up over the Arctic instead of running flat across?
- Switch to the flat map. What does it do to the apparent size of Greenland and Antarctica compared with the globe?
- Turn on the tropics. Between which two latitudes can the Sun ever be directly overhead at noon?