Spatial Press

User Guide

How Many Decimal Places Do Birth Coordinates Need?

More decimal places make a coordinate more specific. They do not automatically make it more accurate.

By Spatial Press ·

A useful scale

One degree of latitude is roughly 111 km. That makes 0.01° about 1.1 km, 0.001° about 111 m, 0.0001° about 11 m, and 0.00001° about 1 m in latitude. Longitude spacing shrinks with latitude.

Match digits to the source

A city-center lookup may be appropriate to three decimal places computationally but still only be “city-level” evidence. A digitized building footprint may support tens-of-meters precision. A maternity-wing floor plan may support more.

Keep computational precision and evidentiary precision separate

Software can store six decimals without claiming the source is accurate to six decimals. Spatial Press can preserve the exact numeric point while separately labeling whether it came from a city, facility, building, wing, or another evidence level.