Latitude & Longitude Practice

Your Mission

Crack the code to find out where the thieves are taking the loot.

Briefing

Crafty robbers broke into the Royal Geographical Society in London and stole armfuls of priceless maps. Finding them would be hopeless, except that they dropped a scrap of paper with some odd scribbles on it.

The thieves who broke into the Royal Geographical Society left behind this code. (As a bonus clue, we’ve added the number of letters in each city’s name.)

First letters from each place-name read. Spell out the town and come with speed.
LATITUDE	LONGITUDE	LETTERS
40° 58’ N	5° 39’ W	9
21° 18’ N	157° 51’ W	8
36° 52’ S	174° 46’ E	8
1° 17’ S	36° 49’ E	7
6° 48’ N	58° 10’ W	10
21° 2’ N	105° 51’ E	5
16° 51’ N	99° 55’ W	8
41° 1’ N	28° 58’ E	8

KEY:	° represents degrees of latitude or longitude.
	’ represents minutes (out of 60) within a degree.

At the top is a rhyme that seems to be an instruction from the thieves' boss:

First letters from each place-name read.
Spell out the town and come with speed.

But the note doesn't mention any places! All you see are weird combinations of letters and numbers. Luckily, a sharp-eyed geographer peers over your shoulder and says, "Coordinates. How fascinating!" She refreshes your memory on latitude and longitude, those imaginary lines that help us locate places.

The numbers, you realize, are the coordinates for cities all over the planet. (1) Find those places in an atlas or on a map. (2) As you find each place, write its name next to the coordinates. (3) Circle the first letter of each name. (4) Read the letters from top to bottom, and they should spell the name of a city. Now you know where to nab those cartographic crooks.

Click here to enter the latitude and longitude coordinates.

If your teacher has NOT already given you the worksheet, click here to open the document in Microsoft Word and print a copy.