Question

If you began walking along one of Earth's lines of longitude and walked until you had changed latitude by 24 minutes of arc (there are 60 minutes per degree), how far would you have walked (in miles)? This distance equals 24 "nautical miles."

Answer 1

If you walk the distance of 1 minute of arc or 1 nautical mile you will have walked 1.15 statute miles. A statute mile is a little shorter than a nautical mile. A statute mile is what we normally measure distances in on land.

1 Nautical Mile = 1,852 meters exactly by international agreement = 6076.113 feet
1 Statute Mile = 5,280 feet

1 Nautical Mile = 1.15 Statute Mile

Answer 2

The circumference of the Earth is 40,008 km (about). If you divide that into 360 parts (one for each degree) and then divide each part into 60 sub-parts, you will have one nautical mile.

Answer 3

You would have walked a nautical mile.

By the way, if you started at the equator, you would actually have gone 1.005165 nautical miles. If you had started close to one of the poles, you would have gone 0.995089 nautical miles. The difference is 18.661 meters, or about 1%.

1 nautical mile = 1852 meters (exactly, by definition)