![]() One of the issues with DMS is that you will see them expressed in a variety of ways. ![]() This is just like the hours on our clocks and goes back to the Babylonians who worked with a base 60 number system! Even if you see DMS coordinates in a software package, the software will convert the coordinates to DD for calculations.ĭegrees for DMS are divided into 60 minutes and then each minute is divided into 60 seconds. This format allows us to perform standard decimal math operations on the coordinates. Geographic Coordinate Expressions Degrees Minutes Seconds (DMS)ĭegrees, Minutes, and Seconds, or DMS, is the oldest format for geographic coordinates and you will still see this format in use on paper and even in movies where navigators will give their location in DMS.Ĭomputers do not really work well with DMS coordinates and we really prefer the coordinates to be in Decimal Degrees or DD. The format also impacts the precision of the data so it is critical to recognize and use them correctly. This gives us a variety of different formats for reporting the coordinates and you'll see that different groups will use different formats. Geographic coordinates are always in "degrees" but they can also include "minutes" and "seconds".
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