How to Change Latitude from Degrees to Decimals?
- 1). Write down the degree figure in the minutes/seconds notation for the latitude value you want to convert and set it aside. This value will not change. For example, Roswell, N.M., is at latitude 33 degrees 17 minutes 59 seconds, so set aside the 33.
- 2). Convert the seconds figure to minutes. To do so, divide the seconds by 60. In the Roswell example, 59 seconds divided by 60 equals .98 minutes.
- 3). Add the calculated seconds-to-minutes value to the latitude minutes value. For the Roswell example, the latitude minutes value is 17 minutes, so adding .98 minutes to that gives us 17.89 minutes.
- 4). Convert the minutes to decimal notation. To do so, divide the minutes by 60. In this example, 17.98 minutes divided by 60 equals .299.
- 5). Retrieve the degree figure you set aside previously and add the converted minutes figure. In this example, the degree figure is 33 and the converted minutes figure is .299. Therefore, the latitude for Roswell in decimals is 33.299.