Why do shape files store geo coordinates with Longitude first?

Question

Just about everywhere else references geo coordinates as x=latitude,y=longitude. This is generally thought to be for historical reasons of which measurement had the higher accuracy.

Does anyone know why almost all GIS geo spatial shape file formats stores their coordinates as x=longitude, y=latitude?

Answer 1

Maybe it's related to the right-hand-rule:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-hand_rule.