The LOC record (RFC1876) is a means for expressing location information in the Domain Name System. It contains WGS84 Latitude, Longitude and Altitude information together with host/subnet physical size and location accuracy. This information can be queried by other computers connected to the internet. The Domain Name System or DNS is a system that stores information about hostnames and domain names in a type of distributed database on networks, such as the Internet. ... WGS 84 is the 1984 revision of the World Geodetic System. ... Latitude, denoted by the Greek letter φ, gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the Equator. ... Map of Earth showing curved lines of longitude Longitude, sometimes denoted by the Greek letter λ, describes the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north-south line called the Prime Meridian. ... Altitude is the elevation of an object from a known level or datum, called zero level. ... The word subnet may refer to: An abbreviation for subnetwork A mathematical net. ...

Record format

The LOC record is expressed in a master file in the following format:

 <owner> <TTL> <class> LOC d1 [m1 [s1]] {"N"|"S"} d2 [m2 [s2]] {"E"|"W"} alt["m"] [siz["m"] [hp["m"] [vp["m"]]]] (The parentheses are used for multi-line data as specified in [RFC 1035] section 5.1.) where: d1: [0 .. 90] (degrees latitude) d2: [0 .. 180] (degrees longitude) m1, m2: [0 .. 59] (minutes latitude/longitude) s1, s2: [0 .. 59.999] (seconds latitude/longitude) alt: [-100000.00 .. 42849672.95] BY .01 (altitude in meters) siz, hp, vp: [0 .. 90000000.00] (size/precision in meters) 

An example DNS LOC resource record

• yahoo.com in wiki coordinates: 37°23.5150′ N 121°59.3167′ W
• LOC record [1]

 yahoo.com. IN LOC 37 23 30.900 N 121 59 19.000 W 7.00m 100.00m 100.00m 2.00m 

Altitude for Geosynchronous Earth Satellites

The altitude range provides the following: A geosynchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit that has the same orbital period as the sidereal rotation period of the Earth. ... Earth, also known as the Earth, Terra, and (mostly in the 19th century) Tellus, is the third-closest planet to the Sun. ... For other uses, please see Satellite (disambiguation) A satellite is an object that orbits another object (known as its primary). ...

• DNS altitude range [-100000.00 .. 42849672.95]. This range can be easily stored in 4 bytes.
• Maximum altitude is 42,849.67295 km. Which is large enough to store the altitude of a circular geosynchronous orbit (i.e. approximately 35,790 km above mean sea level).
• Maximum depth of 100 km below earth surface.

The Domain Name System or DNS is a system that stores information about host names and domain names in a kind of distributed database on networks, such as the Internet. ...

References

• DNS-LOC calculator
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates The wikipedia location resource.
• Sites supporting DNS LOC
• RFC1876 How latitude and longitude are stored in a DNS record.
• RFC2426 Chapter 3.4.2: Text/directory MIME type GEO