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Because you must go all the way around the Earth in order to cross every possible
longitude, but you only need to go half-way around it ... pole to pole ... in order to
stand at every possible latitude.
And by the way . . . there are an infinite number of longitudes, that cover a range of
360 degrees, and an infinite number of latitudes, that cover a range of 180 degrees.
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Why there are only 180 latitudes and 360 longitudes on earth?
Because when you travel in longitude, you can go all the way around the Earth, 360 degrees, crossing new longitudes all the way . But when you travel in latitude, the farthest you can travel is from one pole to the other pole ... halfway around the Earth, 180 degrees. Once you reach the opposite pole, if you keep going farther, you're just crossing latitudes that you've already crossed once.
Why there are 181 parallels latitudes?
There are 181 parallels of latitude because generally, each degree of latitude is divided into 60 minutes, and 60 minutes are further divided into 60 seconds. This leads to a total of 21,600 minutes in a complete circle (360 degrees x 60 minutes). Subtracting the two points where the axis intersects the reference plane gives us 21,600 - 360 = 21,240, which are the total number of parallels minus the polar circles (90°N and 90°S).
Why do you have 360 degrees longitudes and only 181 degrees latitudes?
The 360 degrees of longitude represent the full circle around the Earth, while the 181 degrees of latitude cover from the North Pole to the South Pole, leaving out the equator which is at 0 degrees latitude. The latitude range is from -90 degrees to +90 degrees, with 180 degrees in total.
How many latitudes and longitudes are there on a map?
It would depend on the specific map. On a globe, there are an unlimited number of specific latitudes between 0 and 90 degrees north (equator to North Pole) and 0 and 90 degrees south (equator to South Pole). Longitudes range from 0 to 180 east and 0 to 180 west from the Prime Meridian, with 180 east and 180 west being the same line (on which the International Date Line is based). The total circumference of the planet is 360 degrees, and it would appear as a circle viewed from above either of the poles. Each degree of longitude is about 111.32 kilometers wide at the equator. Degrees can be divided further into minutes and seconds, or to any accuracy of decimal degrees.
Why longitudes are 360 and latitudes are 180?
The Earth is divided into 360 longitudes because it takes approximately 24 hours for the Earth to complete one full rotation, and there are 24 time zones. Each time zone represents 15 degrees of longitude (360 degrees ÷ 24 = 15 degrees). Similarly, latitudes are divided into 180 because they are measured north and south from the equator, which is at 0 degrees latitude. Half of a sphere is 180 degrees, so latitudes range from 0 to 90 degrees north of the equator and 0 to 90 degrees south of the equator.
