In
geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on
Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ambiguous boundary, relying more on human or social attributes of
place identity and
sense of place than on geometry.
Types
Locality
A
locality,
settlement
Settlement may refer to:
*Human settlement, a community where people live
*Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building
*Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
*Settlement (fina ...
, or populated place is likely to have a well-defined name but a boundary that is not well defined varies by context.
London, for instance, has a legal boundary, but this is unlikely to completely match with general usage. An area within a town, such as
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
in London, also almost always has some ambiguity as to its extent. In geography, location is considered to be more precise than "place".
Relative location
A relative location, or situation, is described as a displacement from another site. An example is "3 miles northwest of
Seattle".
Absolute location
An absolute location can be designated using a specific pairing of
latitude and
longitude in a
Cartesian coordinate grid (for example, a
spherical coordinate system
In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the ''radial distance'' of that point from a fixed origin, its ''polar angle'' measu ...
or an ellipsoid-based system such as the
World Geodetic System) or similar methods. For example, the position of
New York City in the United States can be expressed using the coordinate system as the location 40.7128°N (latitude), 74.0060°W (longitude).
Absolute locations are also relative locations, since even absolute locations are expressed relative to something else. For example, longitude is the number of degrees east or west of the
Prime Meridian, a line arbitrarily chosen to pass through
Greenwich, England. Similarly, latitude is the number of degrees north or south of the
equator
The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...
. Because latitude and longitude are expressed ''relative'' to these lines, a position expressed in latitude and longitude is also a relative location.
See also
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Locale (geographic)
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Location, Location, Location
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Location Location Location Australia
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Location (Geography)
Cartography
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