Computing the dimensions of a geographical area

Hi everyone,

I am trying to compute the dimensions of the rectangle (or Cell) shown in blue in the map, which has been generated by geodensityplot according to the values of LatP, LonP, and respective weights.

As you can see from the figure, I tried to compute the width and the height of the rectangle with two methods:

1. I considered the average latitude/longitude and I chose the points with the maximum and minimum longitude/latitude to compute the distance and convert it in meters.

2. I simply computed the lengths of the arcs covered by the rectangle as arcLon=max(LonP)-min(LonP) and arcLat=max(LatP)-min(LatP) and computed the average distance spanned by those arcs.

My concern is that both the methods (especially the first one, that should be more accurate) are providing weird results. Indeed, from the map it is evident that the width should be around 5300 m and the height around 6200 m.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[darova]

Please attach the whole code

[Maurilio Matracia]

load('Data_southArgentina')

arcLat = max(latP)-min(latP) ;   arcLon = max(lonP)-min(lonP) ;  totalPopulation = sum(densityP) ;
rowsU = 20+1 ;  colsU = 15+1 ;
widthCell = 1000 * deg2km( distance( (max(latP)+min(latP))/2, min(lonP), (max(latP)+min(latP))/2, max(lonP) ) / colsU) 
heightCell = 1000 * deg2km( distance( (max(lonP)+min(lonP))/2, min(latP), (max(lonP)+min(lonP))/2, max(latP) ) / rowsU)
widthCell = 1000 * deg2km( arcLon / colsU) 
heightCell = 1000 * deg2km( arcLat / rowsU)

[darova]

What are colsU and rowsU?

[Maurilio Matracia]

sorry, they're actually the number of rows or columns to further divide the cell in subcells...

In the initial question I assumed them equal to 1 so that we just have the full rectangle, you can do the same