Latitude and longitude?

Question

They confuse me.Longitude run north south, but measures east west?

Maybe someone can explain the difference between latitude and longitude.

Answer 1

latitude runs from top to bottom.
longitude runs from the side.

Answer 2

Latitudes are imaginary, parallel lines to the Equator.They never meet each other as they are parallel and they are running in east-west direction.But longitudes are imaginary lines connecting the north pole and south pole and lying at equal distance from each other at a particular latitude.All the longitudes meet at the north pole and south pole and hence they are not parallel.These are running in north-south direction.
If you want to find out the shotest distance between two parallel lines, you have to draw a perpendicular line to both and measure the length of the perpendicular line.So if the parallel lines are in north-south direction,then the above perpendicular line shoud be in eat-west direction.Is it not?.Similar is the case when you are measuring the distance beween two latitudes and longitudes.While latitudes are actual parallel lines,the longitudes are supposed to be parallel at a particular latitude(even though they are not actually parallel and all meet at two points, ie,over the north pole and south pole).So longitudes measure east-west and latitudes measure north-south.I hope now it will be clear to you.

Answer 3

Latitude runs east to west. And longitude runs north to south.

Answer 4

Lines of longitude run from the north pole to the south pole. The starting point for measuring longitude is called the prime meridian and it runs through Greenwich England (a suburb of London). Latitude is measured from the equator, which is midway between the poles, north and south. Your position anywhere on the planet is measured in degrees of latitude and longitude, so as you travel east or west your position is changing relative to the prime meridian, or in terms of longitude. Similarly, when you travel north or south your position changes relative to the equator or in terms of latitude.