Question

Google Maps gives me the Lat and Long of a location in decimal notation like this:

38.203655,-76.113281

How do I convert those to Coords (Degrees, Minutes , Seconds)

Was it helpful?

Solution

38.203655 is a decimal value of degrees. There are 60 minutes is a degree and 60 seconds in a minute (1degree == 60min == 3600s).

So take the fractional part of the value, i.e. 0.203655, and multiply it with 60 to get minutes, i.e. 12.2193, which is 12 minutes, and then repeat for the fractional part of minutes, i.e. 0.2193 = 13.158000 seconds.

Example in python:

def deg_to_dms(deg):
    d = int(deg)
    md = abs(deg - d) * 60
    m = int(md)
    sd = (md - m) * 60
    return [d, m, sd]

print deg_to_dms(38.203655)
print deg_to_dms(-76.113281)

OTHER TIPS

In case you need other geo-related functionality in JavaScript, you may use the following library

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html

it provides the following functionality:

  • DMS from/to decimal latitude/longitude conversions
  • Distance calculations
  • Bearing calculation
  • Intersection point calcualtion

Python library that does the trick:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/LatLon/1.0.2

I think this will help you with the solution :

def deg_min_sec(self,degrees=0.0):
        if type(degrees) != 'float':
            try:
                degrees = float(degrees)
            except:
                print '\nERROR: Could not convert %s to float.' % (type(degrees))
                return 0
        minutes = degrees % 1.0 * 60
        seconds = minutes % 1.0 * 60

        return (degrees, minutes, seconds)
Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top