At work, I have to check documents and see where particular land tracts are located. Some of these descriptions contain phrases such as “48 degrees North, 15 minutes, 27 seconds West” etc… Now, I know what degrees, minutes, seconds are, and I know what 48 degrees north means, but, I’m unsure of how it is used when people say “X degrees South”. I’ve only checked 10 or so documents, and this is the first time that I can recall seeing *any *degrees south. The south is the part that gets me. Is that the same as what I would call 90 + X degrees North? Meaning, I would place 0 degrees at due North (12 o’clock) for general purposes and 180 degrees at due south (6 o’clock), 90 degrees north would be 3’oclock, etc…
But, I found myself confused the other day, asked somebody and they said that there is such a thing as 0 degrees South.
I’m sure there is such a thing, but, it’s been a while since I’ve been in any class that would deal with this issue-a google search turns up the Equator, or the South Pole, or other longitudinal coordinates on a globe, and a few pages of google searching makes me think I’m on a fool’s errand if I continue down that course.
Can anyone here tell me what ‘48 degrees south’ means?
And, searching for a webpage on this using a google search would require what keywords? Geography? Land surveying? ???
Thanks,
hh
Its almost always degrees S of the equator. So 0 degrees S would be the equator (and the same as 0 degrees N) while 90 degrees S would be the S pole.
Degrees south means south of the equator. You can plug lat/long into Google maps to see the location mapped.
And 90 degrees North would be the North Pole.
Alright!
Thanks, guys!
Looks like I get to keep my job!
hh
But you’re being transferred to Argentina?
48 Degrees South is a line of latitude that circles the globe, passing through the bottom of South American. Am I not understanding this question? Degrees North are latitude lines North of the equator. Degrees South are the lines South of the Equator.
If you’re ready property legal descriptions, those are compass directions, not latitude. Follow the description and you’re drawing a line around the boundary of the property. “48 degrees south” is probably not the full phrase - more like “east 48 degrees south”, which would be 48 degrees south from due east, or a compass point of 138 degrees.
I expect a real surveyor to come along and correct me on the details, but that’s the basic idea.
ETA: Simulpost …
hh: *If *you are seeing “degrees South” in your documents and you know they’re refering to property in the Northern Hemisphere, then it’s obviously not really referring to degrees of latitude as everybody above has assumed.
You’d need to check with somebody with some surveying skills to see if there’s some other, perhaps obsolete surveying terminology which uses “degrees South” in a different way. At least in the US, there are a lot of weird, but still official, ways in which real estate is legally described. Historically it has not been a matter of simply listing the lat/long of each corner of the parcel.
The technical term is compass quadrant bearing.
I should add that a quad bearing is actually expressed this way:
South 45 degrees East.
This is the same as Southeast or 135 degrees on a more typical (azimuth) compass.
An entertaining (and useful?) way of dealing with the thread’s issue is to visit
http://www.confluence.org/ and examine such pages as:
DCP: (visit #2)
Yeah, you need more of the accompanying information. As someone who used to read, write, and teach others how to read and write deeds, if I see “48 degrees South,” my first comment would be, “South of WHAT?”
A metes and bounds description starts at either a known point, or a beginning described from a known point, and then walks around the complete perimeter of the parcel of land. It closes back on the point of beginning. A course in a deed description might read, “Thence South 48 degrees East, to the NE corner of that certain parcel of land as described in deed recorded blah blah blah…”
Very, VERY rarely are azimuth readings used in a legal description. Azimuth readings are typically used for navigating over land with a compass, like the Army doods do.
At the beginning of a legal description, there should be some kind of reference as to the basis of bearings used. That basis would determine if you are using compass descriptions or azimuth.
~VOW
Thanks, guys, for bearing with me.
I just got back… uh, yeah, I took the earlier info to work, and, of course, I hadn’t given enough info in the OP, so, you all instructed me for what I asked for…not what I needed. (I swear we used to have a ‘blush’ smilie):smack:
At any rate, the ‘48 degrees south’ really should have been 'S 48 degrees East’…along those lines.
Thanks for the help, and sorry for the wild goose chase, all.
hh
Just track the route to Flori-duh. And use a crayon.
Well, “S 48 degrees East” is certainly confusing. Maybe we need the full context.
BTW here is your blushie. :o
A quick lesson on reading compass quadrant bearings;
If you were to look at a quad compass you will see that the degree markings do not run from 0 to 360. Rather the compass is divided into quadrants with the degrees marked 0 to 90. North and South are marked 0d while East and West are 90d.
How you read a quad bearing of South 48 degrees East is by first knowing that South is telling you the bearing is in the southern hemisphere of the compass. The actual bearing is found 48 degrees to the Eastern portion of compass dial.
One of the reasons for using quad compass bearings is the simplification of the mathematics involved in changing bearings. The easiest example of this is calculating a back or reverse bearing. The exact opposite of S 48d 21’ 44" E is N 48d 21’ 44" W.
shoot missed the correction of “hemisphere”
please mentally delete that word in the above.