ForHosting KIT · Developer Utilities

Length of a degree of latitude

How many metres does one degree of latitude span on the ground? On a perfect sphere the answer would be constant, but Earth is an oblate WGS-84 ellipsoid, so the meridional length of one degree grows slightly from the equator toward the poles as the meridional radius of curvature changes with latitude.

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Run — free How it works & API

Use it from WebAPIEmailTelegramApp soon

Surveyors, GIS engineers, map-projection teachers, navigation students, and simulation pipelines need that local scale factor when converting grid cells, checking textbook tables, or sizing latitude bands without integrating a full geodesic. This capability takes a single geodetic latitude in decimal degrees, evaluates the closed-form meridional radius of curvature with fixed WGS-84 semi-major axis and flattening, multiplies by pi over one hundred eighty, and returns metres, kilometres, feet, and nautical miles as deterministic JSON. Latitudes outside the closed interval from minus ninety to ninety fail with a clear invalid input error. The browser widget runs free on your device; the prepaid API charges $0.002 per successful item when servers and SDKs need the same contract under KIT balance.

How to use it

Enter your values in the form above. The tool checks them before calculating and shows the result on the same page.

Check your inputs

Use the labels and units shown next to each field. If something is missing or outside the allowed range, the page points to the field to fix.

Use it again or automate it

Use the browser tool for individual checks and the API when you need the same capability in an automated workflow.

What you can do with it

Get an answer now

Enter one set of values and see the result without building a spreadsheet or script.

Compare scenarios

Change one value at a time and rerun the calculation to understand what affects the result.

Automate repeated work

Use the API when the same calculation needs to run inside your product or workflow.

FAQ

How do I use this capability?

Complete the fields above and run it on this page. The form highlights anything that needs attention.

For developers — API access

Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.

API endpoint

POSThttps://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude

Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.

Call it from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"latitude":45}'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "latitude": 45
  })
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();

import os, requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
    json={
    "latitude": 45
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]

<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude", false, stream_context_create([
  "http" => [
    "method"  => "POST",
    "header"  => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
    "content" => '{"latitude":45}',
  ],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);

body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"latitude":45}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/geo/degree-length-latitude", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

Example request

{
  "latitude": 45
}

Example response

{
  "task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "type": "geo.degree_length_latitude",
  "status": "queued",
  "_links": {
    "result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
  }
}

The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.

Pricing

Per request$0.002

Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.

Errors

HTTP	Code	Meaning
`401`	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid API key.
`402`	`insufficient_balance`	Your balance doesn't cover the task price.
`404`	`unknown_type`	That task type doesn't exist.
`429`	`rate_limited`	Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling.

Read the full KIT documentation →

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