Colatitude

In a spherical coordinate system, a colatitude is the complementary angle of a given latitude, i.e. the difference between a right angle and the latitude. Here Southern latitudes are defined to be negative, and as a result the colatitude is a non-negative quantity, ranging from zero at the North pole to 180° at the South pole.

The colatitude corresponds to the conventional 3D polar angle in spherical coordinates, as opposed to the latitude as used in cartography.