Manipulate Data
Explore the application of feature engineering techniques on geospatial data using geopy.
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Formats of the geographic coordinate system
There are different formats for displaying latitude and longitude coordinates, like degrees minutes seconds (DMS) or decimal degrees (DD). The following table shows the coordinates in decimal format:
Decimal Degrees Format
Store | lat | long |
StoreA | 55.833572 | 37.640837 |
StoreB | 55.801166 | 37.811811 |
At the equator, each additional decimal place in the coordinates represents a smaller distance. As a rough estimate, at the equator, each decimal place is roughly equivalent to 11.1 meters. In other words, each decimal place corresponds to approximately 11.1 meters in distance or roughly 0.0001 degrees. With six decimal places, the level of precision is so fine that it can distinguish locations as close as 0.11 meters at the equator.
Degree Precision
Decimal Places | Decimal Degrees (DD) | Distance | Object that can be uniquely identified at this scale |
0 | 1.0 | 111km | Country or region |
2 | 0.01 | 1.11km | Town or village |
5 | 0.00001 | 1.11m | Individual houses |
6 | 0.000001 | 0.11m | Individual humans |
In general, a level of precision greater than six decimal places in decimal degrees is unlikely to be necessary for most applications, as this ...