A compass rose, sometimes named Wind Rose or Compass Star, is a circular-shaped, printed symbol that displays the four cardinal directions: North, East, South, and West. It helps people to show directions on a map so people can find where they are going. Lines of longitude and latitude are imaginary lines that circle around the Earth vertically and horizontally. Generally, the compass rose and the lines of longitude and latitude are the two common methods people would use to identify directions and locations. From my perspective, however, lines of longitude and latitude are a better navigation tool in terms of precise location, time zone, and weather situation.
Lines of longitude and latitude can help people identify absolute location more precisely while the compass rose only shows people the directions on a map. Together, lines of longitude and latitude interact and form squares, just like the lines people see on the graph paper. When looking closer, people can see numbers written by the lines. Those numbers give the addresses of a specific place on Earth, or called Absolute Location. A compass rose may be helpful when people get lost in the ocean or forest because it can roughly tell people the directions where they are going. However, lines of longitude and latitude can show people the absolute location for a specific place exactly with the written numbers, and this is especially true when people are traveling in a city or worldwide with many streets, roads, or highways. Without questions, lines of longitude and latitude allow people to pinpoint exact location, enabling precise navigation.
Additionally, lines of longitude play an essential role in defining time and date. Specifically, the longitudes specify the east and west on the earth’s surface and they are measured by degrees. Earth with 360 degrees is divided into 24 hours; in other words, each hour is 15 degrees of longitude. The meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, is internationally accepted as the line of 0 degrees longitude, or Prime Meridian. Based on the Prime Meridian, when people move eastward, time increases by roughly one hour or 15 degrees of longitude while moving westward, time shifts back. If people were traveling to San Francisco, California with a compass rose on a map, it would be very hard for them to decide what time it is exactly. However, with the line of longitude, people could tell the time and date in San Francisco by looking at the degree of the longitude. Indeed, lines of longitude allow people to understand the time and date, which helps to plan travel arrangements as well as calculate time differences in different places.
Moreover, the lines of latitude contribute to people gaining the understanding of climate, weather, and temperature. The equator, the 0 degrees of latitudes, separates the Earth into Northern and Southern hemispheres. Technically, everything north of the equator has positive latitude values, whereas everything south of the equator has negative latitude values. The North and South Poles represent 90° North and 90° North South latitudes, respectively. Earth is divided into various parts via lines of latitudes. Starting from the top is the Arctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, and the Antarctic Circle. The farther it is from the Equator, the colder it is. Relatively, if it is closer to the Equator, it would be hotter. The Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer are the boundaries of the Tropics. The Antarctic Circle and the Arctic circle are the boundaries of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. If people plan traveling to India which is very close to the equator, based on the lines of latitude, people are able to predict the temperature and the weather over there so they can decide what kind of clothes they could bring and wear. However, just by looking at the compass rose itself on a map would not be helpful in figuring out the climate there. Certainly, lines of latitude give people the power to predict the weather and temperature difference across the globe.
Compared to the compass rose, lines of longitude and latitude is a more helpful navigation tool to find the location and the distance of the destination, because the lines of longitude and latitude could precisely identify absolute locations for a specific place, the lines of longitude could determine the time and date, and the lines of latitudes could help people predict the climate and temperature. A compass rose, however, does not have the above-mentioned functions; it only has the function of showing people the directions on a map. Excitedly, based on the concept of longitude and latitude lines, scientists develop the Global Position System (GPS) to help people with positioning and navigation, and timing. Nowadays many cell phones and cars have built-in GPS, which is very convenient for daily life.
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