Figure of the Earth

Figure of the Earth is a term of art in geodesy that refers to the size and shape used to model Earth. The size and shape it refers to depend on context, including the precision needed for the model. A sphere is a well-known historical approximation of the figure of the Earth that is satisfactory for many purposes. Several models with greater accuracy (including ellipsoid) have been developed so that coordinate systems can serve the precise needs of navigation, surveying, cadastre, land use, and various other concerns.

Geodesy
Fundamentals Geodesy Geodynamics Geomatics History
Concepts Geographical distance Geoid Figure of the Earth (radius and circumference) Geodetic coordinates Geodetic datum Geodesic Horizontal position representation Latitude / Longitude Map projection Reference ellipsoid Satellite geodesy Spatial reference system Spatial relations Vertical positions
Technologies Global Nav. Sat. Systems (GNSSs) Global Pos. System (GPS) GLONASS (Russia) BeiDou (BDS) (China) Galileo (Europe) NAVIC (India) Quasi-Zenith Sat. Sys. (QZSS) (Japan) Discrete Global Grid and Geocoding
Standards (history) NGVD 29 Sea Level Datum 1929 OSGB36 Ordnance Survey Great Britain 1936 SK-42 Systema Koordinat 1942 goda ED50 European Datum 1950 SAD69 South American Datum 1969 GRS 80 Geodetic Reference System 1980 ISO 6709 Geographic point coord. 1983 NAD 83 North American Datum 1983 WGS 84 World Geodetic System 1984 NAVD 88 N. American Vertical Datum 1988 ETRS89 European Terrestrial Ref. Sys. 1989 GCJ-02 Chinese obfuscated datum 2002 Geo URI Internet link to a point 2010 International Terrestrial Reference System Spatial Reference System Identifier (SRID) Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
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