# Coordinates of Latitude and Longtitude different on Cesium vs real world?

**URL:** <https://community.cesium.com/t/coordinates-of-latitude-and-longtitude-different-on-cesium-vs-real-world/4893>\
**Category:** CesiumJS\
**Created:** [December 7, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/coordinates-of-latitude-and-longtitude-different-on-cesium-vs-real-world/4893 "2016-12-07T02:27:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![whatdidido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@whatdidido](https://community.cesium.com/u/whatdidido)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/coordinates-of-latitude-and-longtitude-different-on-cesium-vs-real-world/4893/1 "2016-12-07T02:27:43Z")

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Hello all,

I am running into a problem that I can't seem to find documentation on. I am trying to center the view around Australia (using the latitude and longitude of Sydney as a basis [-33.865143, 151.209900]).

When I enter those coordinates into

var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer');

viewer.camera.setView({  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;position : new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-33.865143, 151.209900, 1550.0)  
});

the view centers around North America, barely any difference from the normal view that pops up in the "Hello World" example..

I even added a simple console.log at the end to check if all the code was being run and it was.  
I suspect that the coordinate system for cesium is vastly different from the real world and I am not sure how to fix that...

Any help would be great.

I also tried the Cartographic way:

viewer.camera.setView({  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;positionCartographic : new Cesium.Cartographic(-33.865143, 151.209900, 1550.0)  
});

That produced a similar result as the first one.

---

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**Author:** ![hannah](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/hannah/32/4509_2.png) [@hannah](https://community.cesium.com/u/hannah)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2016, 5:56am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/coordinates-of-latitude-and-longtitude-different-on-cesium-vs-real-world/4893/2 "2016-12-07T05:56:52Z")

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Hello,

Cesium uses (longitude, latitude), not (latitude, longitude). Switching the coordinates fixes the problem.

Here is your updated example:

var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer(‘cesiumContainer’);  
viewer.camera.setView({  
destination : new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(151.209900, -33.865143, 1550.0)  
});

``

Best,

Hannah

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![whatdidido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@whatdidido](https://community.cesium.com/u/whatdidido)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/coordinates-of-latitude-and-longtitude-different-on-cesium-vs-real-world/4893/3 "2016-12-07T23:56:32Z")

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Ah thank you so much!!

I feel a little silly, I see that is noted on the documentation.