LOCATION 5G

LOCATION AND

ORIENTATION

RELATIVE LOCATION

Every day people need to localize and locate places when going to school, work or shopping. When we walk down the street we are orienting ourselves and locating places -consciously or unconsciously- based on reference points stored in our memory (a store, the intersection of two avenues, a park, etc.). This is called relative localization.

Orientation and cardinal directions

There are universal reference points that serve to orient us anywhere on the earth's surface. They are called cardinal directions and there are four of them: north (N) south (S) east (E) west (W). These points have been determined taking into account the place where the sun rises (E) and where it sets (W).

The compass, an instrument created by the Chinese, helps us to orient ourselves based on the cardinal points.

The sun rises in the east. If before noon we point with our right hand to that point, we will be facing north, so the south will be at our back and the west to our left. The first aspect that we must know when we want to locate a place is its orientation, that is to say, the cardinal direction in which it is located.

The imaginary lines of the Earth

The Earth rotates on an imaginary line called the terrestrial axis. This axis defines the cardinal points. The equator divides the world into two halves: the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. At the extreme ends of each are the North Pole and the South Pole. From these basic lines two types of imaginary lines are determined: parallels and meridians.

Absolute location and geographic coordinates

To accurately locate a place on the Earth's surface, that is, to obtain an absolute location, we have a network of imaginary lines called geographic coordinates. Each place on the Earth's surface has a coordinate, which is the point where a parallel and a meridian intersect, each with a respective latitude and longitude value.

Parallels are circumferences parallel to the equator. There are four parallels that are taken as reference points: the tropics and the polar circles. The equator is the parallel of origin, so it has a value of 0°. From there, the parallels increase up to 90° north or south. Latitude is the distance between any point on the Earth's surface and the equator.

Meridians are semicircles whose ends coincide with the poles. The Greenwich meridian (the name of a town near London) has a value of 0° and divides the Earth into two hemispheres: the western hemisphere and the eastern hemisphere. Longitude is the distance between any point on the Earth's surface and the meridian of origin.