Geographical mile

The geographical mile is an international unit of length determined by 1 minute of arc (1/60 degree) along the Earth's equator. For the international ellipsoid 1924 this equalled 1855.4 metres. The American Practical Navigator 2017 defines the geographical mile as 6,087.08 feet (1,855.342 m). Greater precision depends more on the choice of the Earth's radius of the used ellipsoid than on more careful measurement, since the radius of the geoid varies more than 100 metres (328.084 ft) along the equator. In any ellipsoid, the length of a degree of longitude at the equator is exactly 60 geographical miles. The Earth's radius at the equator in the GRS80 ellipsoid is 6,378,137.0000 m, which makes the geographical mile 1,855.3248 m. The rounding of the Earth's radius to metres in GRS80 has an effect of 0.0001 m.

The shape of the Earth is a slightly flattened sphere, which results in the Earth's circumference being 0.168% larger when measured around the equator as compared to through the poles. The geographical mile is slightly larger than the nautical mile (which was historically linked to the circumference measured through both poles); one geographic mile is equivalent to approximately 1.00178 nautical miles.