The coordinate plane is a grid made from two perpendicular number lines: the horizontal $x$-axis and the vertical $y$-axis. Every point on the plane can be named by an ordered pair $(x, y)$ — the first number tells you how far to move along the x-axis, and the second number tells you how far to move along the y-axis.

The x-axis and y-axis can both include negative numbers. The point $(\text-3, 2)$ is 3 units left of the origin and 2 units up.

When two points share the same row (same $y$-coordinate) or the same column (same $x$-coordinate), the distance between them is the number of hops between the two different coordinates. For example, the distance from $(\text-6, 3)$ to $(1, 3)$ is 7 because the points share $y = 3$ and the $x$-coordinates are 7 units apart.