Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)

Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) is a projected coordinate system that divides Earth between 80 degrees south and 84 degrees north into 60 zones, each 6 degrees of longitude wide, projected on a transverse Mercator with a central-meridian scale factor of 0.9996. Coordinates are eastings and northings in meters, with a 500,000 m false easting and, in the southern hemisphere, a 10,000,000 m false northing to keep values positive. The scale factor keeps distortion under about 1 part in 1,000 within a zone. UTM is the default working grid for hydrographic survey planning and GIS because it preserves shape locally and uses metric distances.