Importing coordinates as CSV file, but points are not displayed

Question

I use QGIS and I'm importing Lat/Long coordinates as a delimited text layer. The attribute table looks fine but the points themselves are nowhere to be found ('zoom to layer' doesn't point anywhere, so the points are not displayed at all).

In the same project, I have another shapefile with coordinates which is on the same CRS as the one I try to add now (Hartebeesthoek 94, EPSG 4148), and that one does display correctly.

If I opt for a different CRS, in some cases the same problem occurs (WGS 84, EPSG 4326) and in other cases the points are displayed (WGS 84 / UTM zone 49S, ESPG 32749) but in the wrong location, of course.

What is going on?

Answer 1

You are putting the x and y coordinates in wrong order. -8.183973 is latitude (Y) and 111.845623 is longitude (X). You need to adjust the column of X and Y to be Y and X, respectively. The coordinates are in geographic, which means using WGS84 is suitable for the given coordinates.

Here is an image showing the correct location in Google Earth:

Answer 2

Latitudes can never be greater than 90 degrees, latitude ranges from 0 at the equator to 90.0 at the north pole and -90.0 at the south pole. If you have a set of long/lat pairs and one column has values higher than 90, that's a giveaway that that column is the longitude value (the X coordinate).