Enrichment · Passion Projects · Maps

Degrees, minutes, seconds,
decimals: one place,
every format.

Paste a coordinate the way you found it. The converter reads it, catches the usual slips, and gives it back in all three formats, so the map, the GPS and the guidebook agree.

Convert a placeWhat you get

The coordinate converter

The worked example is the Statue of Liberty, a public landmark. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

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What you get

Enrichment · Passion ProjectsFree

What you finish with
The place in decimal degrees, degrees minutes seconds and decimal minutes, its hemisphere, and what the decimal places mean on the ground. It prints as a summary and downloads as a spreadsheet.
Who it is for
Geography and earth science students, hikers and geocachers, teachers planning field trips, and local history researchers.
Format
Browser converter for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Prints a summary; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
Free. No account, no sign-in and nothing to install. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Passion Projects space in Caveat Enrichment.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Type or paste the latitude.
  2. Type or paste the longitude.
  3. Fix anything the converter flags.
  4. Copy the format you need from the table.
  5. Print the summary for the trip folder.

Convert a place

How the conversion works

Base 60, and a sign for the hemisphere.

The worked example: the latitudeDegrees40whole degrees+ 41 ÷ 600.683333minutes+ 21.3 ÷ 3,6000.005917secondsNorth, so +40.689250decimal degreesThe worked example: the latitudeDegrees40whole degrees+ 41 ÷ 600.683333minutes+ 21.3 ÷ 3,6000.005917secondsNorth, so +40.689250decimal degrees
A degree splits into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds, like an hour. South and west are written as negatives in decimal degrees.

Three ways to write it

Latitude measures north or south of the equator, 0 to 90 degrees; longitude east or west of the Greenwich meridian, 0 to 180. Each degree divides into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds. Atlases and old records use degrees, minutes and seconds; handheld GPS units and charts often use degrees and decimal minutes; web maps and spreadsheets use decimal degrees, with negative numbers for south and west.

Checks and precision

The converter refuses a latitude marked E or W (a sign the two were swapped), minutes or seconds of 60 or more, and a minus sign together with S or W. A degree of latitude is about 111 km everywhere; a degree of longitude shrinks towards the poles. Six decimal places locate a point to about a tenth of a metre, far finer than a phone GPS can measure.

Sources

  1. National Geodetic Survey, NOAA. Datums and coordinate conversions; NAD 83 and WGS 84 (geodesy.noaa.gov).
  2. U.S. Geological Survey. What are latitude and longitude, and how far apart are degrees, minutes and seconds? (usgs.gov FAQ).
  3. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84) definition (nga.mil).
  4. National Park Service. Statue of Liberty National Monument: park location (nps.gov).

The worked example is a public landmark. Coordinates in other datums can differ by a few metres. What you type stays in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.