One minute of latitude is equal to how many nautical miles?

One minute of latitude is equal to how many nautical miles?

• A. 6 NM
• B. 0.5 NM
• C. 2 NM
• D. 1 NM

Answer: (D)

One minute of latitude equals one nautical mile. This comes from the way latitude is measured: there are 60 minutes in a degree, and the nautical mile is defined so that a one-minute arc along a meridian corresponds to one nautical mile. So a degree equals 60 nautical miles, and a single minute equals 1 nautical mile. This standard makes it easy to translate north–south distance into nautical miles. The other options don’t fit the relationship of minutes to nautical miles (six minutes would be six nautical miles, half a minute would be 0.5 NM, and two minutes would be 2 NM).

One minute of latitude equals one nautical mile. This comes from the way latitude is measured: there are 60 minutes in a degree, and the nautical mile is defined so that a one-minute arc along a meridian corresponds to one nautical mile. So a degree equals 60 nautical miles, and a single minute equals 1 nautical mile. This standard makes it easy to translate north–south distance into nautical miles. The other options don’t fit the relationship of minutes to nautical miles (six minutes would be six nautical miles, half a minute would be 0.5 NM, and two minutes would be 2 NM).