Mostly an aside to your comment, but it's somewhat related. This post's divisions of 10° latitude/longitude is pretty close to the Maidenhead grid system, used

Mostly an aside to your comment, but it's somewhat related. This post's divisions of 10° latitude/longitude is pretty close to the Maidenhead grid system, used heavily by amateur radio operators like myself. The difference is that each top-level grid "square" (to your point, not actually square, but that's what they're called) is 20° longitude by 10° latitude represented by two letters. While the computation of a 4 or more character grid locator code is complex enough that most people can't quite do that in their head, because of them being treated as if they were coordinate "rectangles", it is simple enough to translate lat/lon coordinates to a grid code and vice versa with pen and paper if needed in the case of an emergency, if you know the algorithm or have a reference sheet. The 10° latitude size means that the parallels are the same in the Maidenhead system (for the first two letters of a code) as in this post. It also has the added benefit of knowing that DN is north of DM, which are both west of EM. I've gotten to where I can roughly place someone I hear on the radio based on a mental map of grid codes, and have memorized many grid codes of large population centers. The beauty of the grid code system is that you can further refine an area by adding on subsequent numbers and letters, much like degrees/minutes/seconds in coordinates, but requiring significantly less characters to read to others over the radio. And, you can use phonetics for the letters, i.e. "delta mike seven niner" (DM79) is roughly the entire Denver metro area. Fort Collins, CO on this parent post falls under DN, above that 10°-sized parallel. More info on the Maidenhead system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System Map with two-letter grid codes: https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/gridworld.php https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/maps/gridworld.php