The Universal Transverse Mercator system splits the world between 80° S and 84° N into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide, numbered eastwards from 180° W. Inside one zone, positions are given in metres east and north on a map projection that is almost free of distortion, which is why surveyors, drone pilots, GIS analysts, hikers with GPS units and every national mapping agency use it. To use UTM you first need to know the zone, and that is what this map is for. All zones are drawn in alternating colours with the 8° latitude bands, so you can see at a glance that New York is in 18T, London in 30U, Sydney in 56H and Denver in 13S. Click anywhere, search a town or press "Use my location", and the panel shows the zone, the hemisphere and the grid zone designation, the EPSG code of WGS 84 / UTM for that zone ready to paste into QGIS or ArcGIS, the central meridian and the longitude and latitude bounds, and the point's UTM coordinates. Below that it lists the other coordinate systems built on the same zone whose area of use includes the point, such as ETRS89 in Europe, NAD83 in North America, SIRGAS 2000 in South America or GDA2020 in Australia, each linked to the coordinate converter. The scale factor and grid convergence tell you how much the grid differs from the ground at that spot, and the zone can be forced, for example when a whole project or country is mapped in one zone.
How to use it
- Click the map, search a town or city, paste coordinates or press "Use my location".
- Read the UTM zone, latitude band, EPSG code, central meridian and UTM coordinates in the panel, and copy what you need.
- If your project uses a fixed zone, choose it under "UTM zone for the coordinates" to get the coordinates, scale factor and convergence in that zone.
- For many points, open "Find the zones of a list", paste one coordinate pair per line and download the CSV.
How accurate is it?
How zones and bands are worked out
Zone 1 runs from 180° W to 174° W, zone 2 from 174° W to 168° W, and so on to zone 60 east of 174° E; the zone number is the whole number of 6° steps from 180° W, plus one. Latitude bands are lettered C to X from 80° S, 8° each, with X stretched to 12° to reach 84° N; the letters I and O are skipped. Two areas break the pattern on purpose: zone 32V is widened west to 3° E so that south-western Norway is in one zone, and around Svalbard zones 31X, 33X, 35X and 37X are widened while 32X, 34X and 36X do not exist. The map and the panel apply both exceptions, as GPS units and MGRS do.
Coordinates, scale factor and convergence
UTM coordinates are computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid with Krüger's series as given by Karney (2011), and the point scale factor and meridian convergence with the same series. Compared with PROJ at 600 random points, the coordinates agree to under a millimetre, the scale factor to better than one part in ten billion and the convergence to a billionth of a degree inside the zone. Forced into a neighbouring zone, the series stays within a few centimetres of PROJ up to about 9° from the central meridian.
What the scale factor means
UTM shrinks the central meridian by a factor of 0.9996, so a kilometre on the ground measures 999.6 m on the grid there. About 180 km either side of the central meridian the scale is exactly 1, and at the edge of a zone on the equator it rises to about 1.0010, 1 m in every kilometre. Surveyors correct grid distances with this factor; for maps and GPS work the difference rarely matters.
Good to know
Many countries use one zone for everything
National grids often stretch one UTM zone over the whole country even where it crosses into the next zone. Denmark maps in zone 32 also on Bornholm, which lies in zone 33, and Norway's national maps use zone 33 for the whole mainland. A point can therefore have a different zone in practice from the one this map shows; use "UTM zone for the coordinates" to get its coordinates in the zone your data uses.
N and S are not latitude bands
"32N" can mean zone 32 in the northern hemisphere (as in the EPSG name WGS 84 / UTM zone 32N) or zone 32 in latitude band N, which lies just north of the equator. The panel writes the hemisphere form (32N) for the zone and the band form (32V) for the grid zone designation, so they cannot be mixed up.
No UTM near the poles
North of 84° N and south of 80° S, UTM is replaced by the polar stereographic UPS grid. The map draws no zones there, and a click in those areas says so instead of giving a zone.
Frequently asked questions
What UTM zone am I in?
Press "Use my location" and allow your browser to share it, or click your area on the map. The panel shows the zone and hemisphere, for example 18N for New York, the grid zone designation 18T and the EPSG code 32618 for WGS 84 / UTM zone 18N.
How do I work out the UTM zone from longitude?
Add 180 to the longitude, divide by 6, drop the decimals and add 1. Longitude −74.0 gives (106 / 6) = 17.7, so zone 18. The only exceptions are south-western Norway, which is in zone 32, and the waters and islands around Svalbard.
What is the EPSG code for a UTM zone?
For WGS 84 it is 32600 plus the zone number in the northern hemisphere and 32700 plus the zone number in the southern hemisphere: zone 33N is EPSG:32633 and zone 56S is EPSG:32756. ETRS89 in Europe uses 25828 to 25838 and NAD83 in North America 26901 to 26923; the panel lists the codes that apply at your point.
Which UTM zone should I use if my area crosses two zones?
Use one zone for the whole project, usually the one that covers most of it or the one your national mapping agency uses. Up to a few degrees outside its own zone, UTM still works well; the panel shows the scale factor so you can see how large the distortion gets.
Can I download the UTM zones?
The selected grid zone can be downloaded as a GeoJSON or KML polygon. For a list of points, the CSV gives zone, hemisphere, grid zone, EPSG code, central meridian, UTM coordinates, scale factor and convergence for each line.
Something wrong or missing? E-mail [email protected] and it will be fixed.