Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Circle of latitude
On the Earth, a circle of latitude or parallel is an imaginary east-west circle that connects all locations with a given latitude. The position on the circle of latitude is given by the longitude. Each is perpendicular to all meridians at the intersection points. Those parallels closer to the poles are smaller than those at or near the Equator.
For a low latitude a circle of latitude can be said to be a line around the Earth, while at a high latitude it is a circle around a pole. Circles of latitude are often used as boundaries between countries or regions.
The five major circles of latitude are, starting from the North Pole and finishing at the South Pole; the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Cancer, the Equator, the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle.
Related Stories
1
2
Earth & Climate News
August 1, 2026
Aug. 1, 2026 Scientists discovered unusually high water-vapor supersaturation inside deep tropical clouds, creating conditions in which tiny aerosol particles could intensify storm updrafts. The finding suggests earlier studies may have missed the effect because ...
July 31, 2026 A new chemical process can transform three of the most common plastics into high-purity hydrogen without sorting them first. The technique operates at much lower temperatures than traditional ...
July 29, 2026 Songbirds appear to have evolved through rare explosions of change separated by long periods of slower development. Many of those bursts lined up with major climate shifts, suggesting that environmental upheaval can reshape life in powerful ...
July 29, 2026 Bumblebees naturally have short lives, but extreme heat and human activity are making survival harder. Pesticides can poison bees or destroy the flowers they depend on, while habitat loss leaves them with fewer safe places to live and feed. ...
July 28, 2026 A weakening Atlantic current could supercharge California’s atmospheric rivers while leaving Greenland with fewer snow-producing storms. The changes could raise flood risks, strain infrastructure, and reshape water supplies far beyond the ...
July 26, 2026 Giant sequoias are built to withstand ordinary fires, but recent extreme wildfires killed thousands of trees that had survived for centuries or even millennia. A new analysis of about 26,400 sequoias found that trees in areas treated with prescribed ...
July 26, 2026 A notorious snake invasion that devastated Guam’s native birds may have succeeded because the reptiles carried hidden genetic advantages. Using advanced long-read DNA sequencing, researchers uncovered more than 19,000 large genetic differences in ...
July 25, 2026 Recycling, greener diets, and other personal climate choices do not seem to distract people from supporting major environmental reforms. A four-year study of nearly 2,800 Australians found that these habits neither increased nor reduced later ...
July 24, 2026 Sweden could become an important source of rare earth elements needed for magnets and green technologies. Instead of extracting one target metal, researchers are cataloging everything contained in Swedish mineral deposits. They will then develop ...
July 23, 2026 A global shift toward healthier diets could sharply reduce livestock farming, free up agricultural land, and cut emissions from land-use change by 85% by 2050. At the same time, fruit, vegetable, nut, and legume production could soar, creating a ...
July 23, 2026 Scientists may be able to reliably forecast Antarctic ice loss through the middle of this century, offering governments a vital head start on sea level rise. After that, unstable ice retreat could accelerate dramatically, making the future much ...
July 22, 2026 Ancient fern savannahs may have transformed parts of Europe into a wildfire-prone inferno during the end-Triassic mass extinction. New fossil evidence suggests the ferns repeatedly regrew after fires, creating fresh fuel that helped prolong the ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
Aug. 1, 2026 Scientists studying magma from the 2021 Tajogaite eruption on La Palma have discovered that extreme heat can dramatically change how an eruption unfolds. When magma becomes superheated, it can ...
July 29, 2026 Deep beneath submarine volcanoes, Earth may be running a natural “gold kitchen.” By analyzing volcanic glass from the Kermadec island arc north of New Zealand, researchers found that water-rich ...
July 28, 2026 Deep beneath Japan’s mostly submerged Kikai caldera, scientists have discovered a vast magma reservoir that appears to be filling again. The ...
July 21, 2026 Ancient sediment reveals that some of K’gari’s deepest lakes vanished around 7,500 years ago, despite unusually heavy rainfall. The surprising ...
July 21, 2026 China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper ...
July 20, 2026 Oxygen is disappearing from oceans, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters at an alarming rate, threatening aquatic life and weakening the natural processes that help regulate Earth’s climate. ...
July 19, 2026 The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual ...
July 18, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that a major Cascadia earthquake could trigger a second quake on the San Andreas Fault. The discovery came from ...
July 18, 2026 A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway ...
July 18, 2026 Seismic waves have revealed that the oceanic plate beneath the Ontong Java Plateau was dramatically transformed by the colossal volcanic activity that created it more than 100 million years ago. ...