Earth is Back on the Grid(lines)

By Andy Blank, Software Engineer, Google Earth

When we launched Google Earth, you lined up to drop us a line about lines… of longitude and latitude. I guess you like thinking outside the box(es). Or inside them, as the case may be. Or you’re looking for lines of latitude named after bears, crabs or goats in the sky, or a longitude line with no factors. (Prime meridian, get it? Also tropic of cancer, arctic circle… we like puns here.) Maybe you even want to combine gridlines with one of our other outstanding tools to verify that a nautical mile is (approximately) one minute of latitude. However your goals align, your feedback reached the head of our line, and now we’ve got gridlines lined up for you!

What are gridlines?

Gridlines are the lines on a map that help you know the coordinates of any given location. They most commonly show latitude and longitude, and that’s what we give you in Google Earth.

Gird the Earth with a Grid

You can turn gridlines on and off in the Map Style panel, and they’ll appear in either decimal degrees or degrees, minutes and seconds, depending on the format you’ve chosen in Settings. Gridlines are available on Google Earth for Chrome, iOS and Android.