When Facebook returns place long/lat, what projection do they use?

When Facebook Places Search API returns place long/lat, what coordinate system and units of measurement do they use?

This suggests most online organizations use

Coordinate System: WGS84, Web Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere) - EPSG 3857

Planar Units: meters

However, I would like to confirm this.

CommunityBot

asked Oct 25, 2017 at 6:43

Stan Shunpike

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2

It would help if you give a sample. lat/lon is usually in degrees.
– AndreJ
Oct 25, 2017 at 7:48
2

By the documentation developers.facebook.com/docs/places/web/search API is returning geographic coordinates even the example does not make sense [latitude],[longitude]; e.g., 140.7307,-73.9918 because latitude can not be 140 degrees. Anyway, it means EPSG:4326 just check the order of the coordinates.
– user30184
Oct 25, 2017 at 9:01
@user30184 it's EPSG:4326? Really? how come they aren't using web mercator?
– Stan Shunpike
Oct 26, 2017 at 2:12
Perhaps because lat/lon is hundreds of years older standard and used for example in any GPS device. Web Mercator is widely used for visualizing but not for data transfer. See for example KML or GeoJSON specifications.
– user30184
Oct 26, 2017 at 4:48

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