Comment by logfromblammo

Polar circumference. Earth is an ellipsoid.

Equatorial circumference is 40075 km. One arc-minute of equatorial longitude is about 1.855 km.

People who do crazy things with measurements cause a significant fraction (at least 15/360) of the many pains in my ass. Degrees need to die a painful death, and so can grads. There is nothing at all "natural" about them as a unit of measure, as they are arbitrary divisions of one rotation, by 360 and 400 respectively.

But I admit, even if not natural they may be more convenient for some calculations than other numbers.