can someone explain why a nautical mile is longer than a statute mile?

Answer 1

Here's an explanation:

http://www.dublerfamily.com/nm.html

When we drive our cars on land, we use miles (mi.) to measure distance. These miles are actually "statute miles", 5280 feet. A nautical mile (nm.) is about 15% longer than a statute mile. But why have a different kind of mile?

Everything to do with sailing measurements and navigation has to do with traveling long distances across the large portions of the earth. All of the measurements were standardized by the English long ago when they were the greatest naval power both militarily and in trade. Here is how the English determined that a nautical mile was the unit to use when at sea.

Each day the earth rotates one full revolution. This is equal to 360 degrees of rotation, the same number of degrees of longitude or latitude around the earth, as you can easily see on a globe. Each degree can be divided into 60 equal parts called minutes, just like an hour is divided into 60 equal parts. Each minute of longitude, at the equator, or each minute of latitude, anywhere on earth, is equal to exactly one nautical mile. So a sailor knows when he or she crosses 10 degrees of latitude, he or she has traveled 600 miles north or south (1 nm/minute * 60 minutes/degree * 10 degrees = 600 nm).

One British Admiralty nautical mile, established around 1600, is 6,080 feet. Today we know that a nautical mile, one minute of the earth's rotation at the equator, is actually equal to 6,076.115 feet, now called an international nautical mile.

Answer 2

yo no hablo ingles, que dices?
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NAUTICAL MILE IS LONGER B CAUSE IT HAS 1 + LETTR

Answer 3

they were trying to even out lon. and lat not quite but close

sea captian were not to good with fractions