111,111.1 meters is reliably 1 degree of latitude

https://gis.stackexchange.com/a/2964/5599

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

14 points · 2 comments · view on lemmy.world

2 Comments

eeltech@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3y

Incidentally, these magic numbers of 111,111 are easy to remember by knowing some history: the French originally defined the meter so that 10^7 meters would be the distance along the Paris meridian from the equator to the north pole. Thus, 10^7 / 90 = 111,111.1 meters equals one degree of latitude to within the capabilities of French surveyors two centuries ago.

So its not just a coincidence, it was defined that way!

supanovadova@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3y

I routinely use this in my job, but look at the 0.000001 degree of it.