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There seems to be no standard whether Longitude,Latitude or Latitude,Longitude should be used. WSG84 and stuff based directly on it, seem to prefer Long,Lat.
"Normal people" always tend to speak of Lat, Long - so I've very often seen code or frameworks that use Lat, Long (e.g. google Maps)
Is there any strong argument for either way?
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Handy tip: when giving a co-ordinate, latitude (north or south) always precedes longitude (east or west). Latitude and longitude are divided in degrees (°), minutes (') and seconds (“). There are 60 minutes in a degree and 60 seconds in a minute (similar to measuring time).
Here are examples of formats that work: Decimal degrees (DD): 41.40338, 2.17403. Degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS): 41°24'12.2"N 2°10'26.5"E. Degrees and decimal minutes (DMM): 41 24.2028, 2 10.4418.
The order lat,lon is the classical one, coming from (old) navigation and geography. I assume that latitude in that field is used first because it was easier to measure (using only a ruler, the sun and a stick for length of shadow measuring). The longitude was not determinable for long time.
Latitude/Longitude Formats Latitude and longitude, respectively: each represented as a decimal number. Note that negative latitudes represent the southern hemisphere, and negative longitudes represent the western hemisphere.
A global address is given as two numbers called coordinates. The two numbers are a location's latitude number and its longitude number ("Lat/Long").
If you take a look at a map or globe of the world, you may notice lines running east-west and north-south. The lines run east-west are known as lines of latitude. The lines running north-south are known as lines of longitude.
You are correct, there is no universal standard on the order:
In mathematical functions which do an universal conversion, between x,y or lon,lat or inverse, the lon,lat order should be used, because the x-axis relates to longitude and y to latitude and the x,y order is usually preferred.
Further, if you program a piece of code which is related to draw a lon,lat coordinate on x,y coordinates (screen), I also would use the lon,lat order because of the direct relation to x,y.
The order lat,lon is the classical one, coming from (old) navigation and geography. I assume that latitude in that field is used first because it was easier to measure (using only a ruler, the sun and a stick for length of shadow measuring). The longitude was not determinable for long time. If you read old adventure reports, they only tell the latitude that their expeditions reached).
I think therefore they use latitude first, the measurement of longitude came later in history, once precise chronometers have been available and transportable.
So for apps that display coordinates info on a screen you should display latitude first.
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