Edit: Was informed my GPS does not actually think I am far away, something else is causing that.
(See edit above) Ive heard it’s GPS, but my phone always thinks I am in a city hundreds of miles away for some reason so just wondering more specifically how that would work?
In: Technology
On top of what was said about cell towers, in many areas (particular large metropolitan counties) there is a primary PSAP (public service answering point) who will take all cellphone calls that come from a tower in that region. This will be the 911 operator that you talk to first. That operator will then ask you your location and use that information with mapping software to route your call to the radio dispatch for the correct jurisdiction.
If you cannot tell the operator where you are or do not know, the operator then can use location information from your cell provider to determine where you are and send it to the correct radio dispatch. There are many ways to determine this location information including your phone GPS and cell tower triangulation
The scope of the exact methods are probably beyond an ELI5 but there’s some good info on wikipedia at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_911#Wireless_location](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_911#Wireless_location)
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