Cardinal and Intermediate Directions and Direction Angles

Name: Cardinal and Intermediate Directions and Direction Angles
Author: Jürgen Kummer

The cardinal directions north, east, south and west describe the four main directions on Earth. Between are the intermediate directions. Those are familiar to most people. To make more exact specifications, degrees are used, with 0 degrees pointing north and then going around clockwise. Here the direction names and angles can be compared to each other.

North	N	0°
North-northeast	NNE	22.5°
Northeast	NE	45°
East-northeast	ENE	67.5°
East	E	90°
East-southeast	ESE	112.5°
Southeast	SE	135°
South-southeast	SSE	157.5°
South	S	180°
South-southwest	SSW	202.5°
Southwest	SW	225°
West-southwest	WSW	247.5°
West	W	270°
West-northwest	WNW	292.5°
Northwest	NW	315°
North-northwest	NNW	337.5°

The four cardinal directions are north, south, east, and west, abbreviated to N, S, E, W. Today, north is usually depicted at the top, south at the bottom, west to the left, and east to the right. Throughout the Middle Ages and for a few years thereafter, east was depicted at the top because the biblical Garden of Eden was believed to be in this direction.
North is toward the geographic North Pole, and south is toward the geographic South Pole. The Earth rotates around an axis through these two poles. East and west are perpendicular to this along a line parallel to the equator. East points toward the rising sun, west toward the setting sun.

The four secondary cardinal directions are northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW). They are located midway between the cardinal directions, northeast between north and east, and so on. The angle between a cardinal direction and a neighboring secondary cardinal direction is 45 degrees.

The further subordinate direction is called eighths, of which there are eight. These are named analogously to the names of the secondary cardinal directions and consist of three letters, which are composed of the two neighboring cardinal and secondary directions, one of each. Thus, north-northeast, NNE, lies between north and northeast. The angle to these is 22.5 degrees, half the angle for the secondary cardinal directions.
Sixteenths and thirty-seconds are sometimes also named, but this is much rarer, and their naming is more complicated and confusing. For finer subdivisions, commonly degrees are used, which can be of any accuracy.

Last updated on 03/14/2026. Author: Jürgen Kummer

No responsibility is taken for the correctness of the calculations and information.

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German: Umrechnung von Geo-Koordinaten, Durchschnitt, Stapelverarbeitung, Himmelsrichtungen, Höchster Sonnenstand, Position

Italian: Calcolo con geo-coordinate

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