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latitude

The latitude attribute is used in conjunction with the longitude attribute to specify a position on the Earth. Latitude values are floating point numbers specified in decimal degrees. Positive values indicate northern latitudes, while negative values indicate southern latitudes.

Supporting Tags

The latitude attribute is supported by the <centerPosition>, <extent>, <map>, and <origin> tags. Each tag may define a default value for the latitude attribute, but for most of them it is required.

Examples

<map latitude="35.3" longitude="-96.97">
  <geography>
    <origin latitude="34.14" longitude="-102"/>
    <extent latitude="37" longitude="-94.62"/>
  </geography>
</map>
         
<map>
  <rangeRings>
    <centerPosition latitude="34.81" longitude="-98.01"/>
  </rangeRings>
</map>

Notes

Latitudes and longitudes are specified in decimal degrees in WxML. Be sure not to confuse this format with degrees-minutes-seconds, which is often used to display latitudes and longitudes. While negative values are used to indicate southern latitudes and western longitudes, the software usually displays these as positive values with a direction indicator. The tables below show how latitude values specified in WxML appear when displayed in other formats.

WxML

DD.DD°

DDD°mm'ss"

35.3

35.3° N

35° 17' 05" N

34.14

34.14° N

34° 08' 02" N

-42.5

42.5° S

42° 30' 00" S

-23.2

23.2° S

23° 11' 05" S

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