Throughout history, people have struggled to develop ways to accurately measure distances and describe locations on the surface of the earth. Once it was accepted that the Earth was round, mapmakers divided our globe into hemispheres, or half spheres. The equator became the imaginary line which divided the globe into the northern and southern halves. The Northern Hemisphere is north of the equator and the Southern Hemisphere is south of the equator.
The two hemispheres were further divided by invisible lines of “latitude” that run around the globe east and west. Lines of latitude are called parallels because they run parallel to the equator and are measured in degrees. The equator represents 0 degrees latitude. Parallels tell you the latitude of a location, or how far away (how many degrees) it is from the equator.
In addition, the globe was divided into eastern and western hemispheres by an imaginary line of “longitude” called the prime meridian. The prime meridian runs through the town of Greenwich in England and represents 0 degrees longitude. Lines of longitude (called meridians, because they run parallel to the prime meridian) run north and south around the globe.
If you have an opportunity to travel from a location that is 40 degrees south latitude to one that is 35 degrees north latitude, how many degrees would you travel?