Lat/Long to UTM Converter — WGS84 Coordinates
Enter a latitude and longitude in decimal degrees (WGS84) to get the UTM easting, northing, zone number and latitude band letter — the coordinate system used by GPS receivers and topographic maps.
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Zone 30U N — distance east of zone central meridian + 500 000 m
How does this calculator work?
Enter latitude and longitude in decimal degrees (WGS84) to get UTM easting, northing, zone and band. UTM divides the Earth into 60 six-degree zones; easting is measured from the central meridian (+ 500 000 m offset); northing from the equator (+ 10 000 000 m in the southern hemisphere). Accuracy is better than 1 mm within each zone.
Formula
How this is calculated
UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) divides the Earth between 80°S and 84°N into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide. Within each zone the Transverse Mercator projection wraps a cylinder tangent to a central meridian (scale factor k₀ = 0.9996) around the WGS84 ellipsoid. The projection equations relate geodetic latitude φ and longitude λ to the Cartesian easting and northing on the map sheet.
This calculator uses the Snyder (1987) series expansion — the same algorithm used by most GIS software for moderate-precision work. It computes the radius of curvature N at the point, the meridional arc M from the equator to the point, and combines them via six-term polynomial expansions in A = (λ − λ₀)·cosφ, where λ₀ is the central meridian of the zone. A false easting of 500 000 m keeps all eastings positive; southern hemisphere points get a false northing of 10 000 000 m.
The result is accurate to about 1 mm for points within 3° of the central meridian (the practical zone limit). Two special-case zone adjustments are applied: zone 32 in Norway and the Svalbard zones 31/33/35/37. Polar regions beyond 84°N and 80°S use UPS (Universal Polar Stereographic) instead of UTM.
Frequently asked questions
WGS84 is a datum — an ellipsoidal model of the Earth's shape and orientation. UTM is a coordinate system (projection) built on top of the WGS84 datum. Latitude/longitude are angular coordinates on WGS84; UTM easting and northing are flat (Cartesian) metre-based coordinates derived by projecting the WGS84 ellipsoid onto a cylinder within each 6° zone.
Easting = 500 000 m corresponds to the zone's central meridian, ensuring all eastings are positive (real eastings range from roughly 100 000 to 900 000 m within a zone). Northing = 0 m is the equator for the northern hemisphere; for the southern hemisphere a false northing of 10 000 000 m is added so northings decrease southward from 10 000 000.
The Snyder series converges to better than 1 mm accuracy within a standard UTM zone (±3° of longitude from the central meridian). At the zone edges the error grows to a few metres. For sub-millimetre accuracy across wide areas, use the Karney-Krüger algorithm implemented in libraries such as GeographicLib.
Also known as
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. (2026). Lat/Long to UTM Converter — WGS84 Coordinates [Online calculator]. TG we-Calculate. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/lat-long-to-utm-calculator
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. "Lat/Long to UTM Converter — WGS84 Coordinates." TG we-Calculate. 2026. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/lat-long-to-utm-calculator.
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team, "Lat/Long to UTM Converter — WGS84 Coordinates," TG we-Calculate, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://we-calculate.com/calculator/lat-long-to-utm-calculator
@misc{wecalculate_lat_long_to_utm_calculator, title = {Lat/Long to UTM Converter — WGS84 Coordinates}, author = {{TG we-Calculate Editorial Team}}, howpublished = {\url{https://we-calculate.com/calculator/lat-long-to-utm-calculator}}, year = {2026}, note = {TG we-Calculate} }
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