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location — English
The location of a phenomenon is the place or point on the Earth’s surface where this phenomenon is situated or occurs. There are various ways to describe the location of any place. The two most commonly used ways are to describe either the relative or the absolute location of the place. Using the Cradle of Humankind world heritage site as example, we may describe its location as Gauteng, South Africa. This is a very vague description of relative location. It can be made more specific by adding that the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site is approximately 35 kilometres north-west of Johannesburg and can easily be reached from the N14 highway. With this description, people can find the site, but the location can be even more specifically described by means of the absolute location. The absolute location is the exact point or place, expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds of latitude and the degrees, minutes and seconds of longitude, where a phenomenon is situated or occurs on the surface of the Earth. The absolute location of the Cradle of Humankind is 25˚58’02” south and 27˚39’45” east. Nowadays absolute location is very often used since global positioning systems (GPSs) are commonly used in vehicles.
