The UTM Grid
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- A in-depth explanation and illustration of the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid. This map grid is often used by backpackers and cross-country trekkers. It is the grid of choice for land navigation.
Like this video? If so, you'll want to see my online video course in land navigation. It has around four hours of step-by-step instruction to help you find your way over land. We'll start from the very beginning, and go through some pretty sophisticated techniques. To read more about my course, and to link to it, see this page on my web site:
www.land-naviga...
This is by far the best video on UTM that I've ever seen!
First rate job. Just amazed how logical and perfect this was put together. Thanks!
Thank you.
This video was absolutely amazing! In-depth, to the point and incredibly useful. Thank you so much for doing this.
I'm so pleased you like it. All the best.
This was the best illustrated and clear video I have found so far. Very helpful. Many thanks!
I have self-teaching map reading and plotting paths using GPS and topo maps. I was clueless as to UTM. YOUR VIDEO IS THE BEST, STEP BY STEP EXPLANATION OF UTM EVER PUBLISHED. Thanks so much for your video instruction. I highly recommend it to all.
Came back for a refresher. Still the best breakdown of how to use the UTM system. Understanding the basics of what you are doing, rather than rotely following a formula is so much better. THANKS AGAIN!!
r g You're most welcome. Glad you find it helpful.
Best video on UTM ❤
Great video! 4 days before my exam I'm actually (thanks to this) starting to get the hang of UTM.
Great. Thanks for your comment.
Thanks for the clarification. The only way I could show appreciation to your work is through studying it.
Thank you for your interest. All the best.
Absolutely amazingly explained in great detail. I really appreciate it! You made this all very clear and easy to comprehend.
Go download my free ebook, "Land Navigation." www.land-navigation.com/free-ebook.html In it, you will find, among other things, a written explanation of UTM. Also, I have a four-hour video-based course entitled "Land Navigation--How to Find Your Way and Not Get Lost." www.land-navigation.com/land-navigation-course.html It costs a few bucks, so that's up to you. What it does do is take the book, and "bring it to life" you might say, via video. In any case, thank you for your kind words. Cheers.
Thanks for making this video. I am trying to get as much info as i can on UTM because I am teaching this for the Boy Scouts Geocaching MB. this is truly the best video explanation I have seen out there!
Thanks. I'm glad you find it useful.
I hear what what you are saying, as well as seeing what you are saying . Not many instructors can do this. Thanks for clearing up something that has perplexed me since Boy Scouts in the 50s.
I'm pleased it was helpful. I have a free downloadable ebook on my Land Nav website, which explains all the grids--lat/lon, UTM, and MGRS. I think you'll like having it. It's free. No strings. Cheers. www.land-navigation.com/free-ebook.html
Really in-depth coverage of UTM...I'm learning a lot from the navigation series. thx!
Awesome. The best explanation I have come across. Thanks a ton.
+Vijay SP Glad you found it helpful. Best wishes.
Easy Peasy! Very well explained. I liked the way you ended it "There is always an another adventure"!
Thank you sir.
Reid, thanks for your help and all that you do for us with these videos!
Barry
Extremely useful! Very comprehensive! Thank you
The best video tutorial. Thanks for your help.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. ❤❤❤ I was almost obsessed by spending a full day to understand that. But I couldn't. Then your video came here, and BOOM! THANK YOU again. Best video ever on UTM .
II am very impress, with this video and the way you explain it really help me understand
how a topo UTM system work, am going to watch more of your Videos to learn more
Best video on land Navigation your really good
Thank You
Albert
I'm pleased you found it helpful.
Wonderful and very simplistic explanation of complicated system:) Now I understand UTM coordinate system perfectly, and it helped me with my assignment!! Thanks a ton :)
Hey, I'm glad it helped you. The newer USGS topo maps have the UTM grid already drawn in. The older ones have tick marks, and you have to draw in the grid yourself with a yardstick and a pencil. Or you can consider buying a custom topo map. I have a very good custom map of the Ocala national forest, using the UTM grid with a 1/25,000 (military) scale. See my web site page named "usgs-topo-maps" for some suggestions. Cheers.
UTM is now crystal clear for me ;-) :-) thank you very much
Kudos my friend! Didn't find anything better than this!
Thank you for those kind words. Navigation is a fascinating topic, and learning it and using it is so much fun.
I'm glad you appreciate it. I enjoy navigation, and I'm always pleased to learn more myself. One way I learn is when people in effect say to me "You know, what you're saying doesn't make sense." :-) It's a great check on accuracy, which is what I strive for. Best regards.
Fantastic video, simple explanation I could understand without extra fluff.. I've been looking into getting some utm maps after my trip to Ocala forest. Which is funny you took a point from.
Thanks!
Thank you for an easy to follow explanation of the UTM-system :)
Thanks for that compliment. That was the kind of video I was trying to make.
This was so clear and helpful! You should write a textbook!
+Jeffrey Osgood Thank you, Jeffrey. I'm pleased you found it helpful.
Excellent explanation.
Great Job. I spent hours watching other. I was about to give up. Thank you
+2LearnMore I'm glad it helped. Best regards.
Very useful for Search and Rescue navigation! Thank you kindly.
Great explanation!!
-thanks for this simple explanation. I'm used to lon -lat, but find the UTM system interesting.
You'll love UTM for land nav, once you get used to it. So much easier to use over land.
This is very useful. Thank you so much for your effort.
You bet. Cheers.
Thank you for taking your time and explain it in details, very good information
You bet. All the best.
Explaination in class is not enough because we just know about the thoery but this video is great for me to understand about UTM.
+Rathchamroeun Nuon Glad you found it helpful.
very good and intuitive explanation. thanks for that!
Koseiku Hope it helps.
You're welcome. I'm pleased you found it helpful. Best regards.
Thanks for the thorough and helpful information for us navigation (map & compass) junkies. :-)
You bet.
Great explanation. Really awesome
Thanks very much great explanation........the best video founded.
Thank you, man.
Great video!
I am so pleased it was helpful to you. Best wishes for success in all your work.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and time... I've now subscribed to you :)
You bet. Thank you for your interest in this topic.
Very helpful! Thanks so much for making this video for us.
Perfectly explained.
this was very helpful to me. thank you very much. blessings,
Daniel Mokhtar Sure thing. Cheers.
Thank you. I learnt something new today.
You're most welcome. Glad it was helpful.
if quadrant R is 8 degrees high, then why at 7:28 the 8 degrees is divided into 10 rows and not 8 rows if each square is about 100000 m2. In an 8 or 12 degrees high quadrant i would assume there would be 8 or 12 rows respectively.
Thanks Very clear and useful explanation
+John Stanton You bet. Glad I could help.
Phenomenal Video. Thank you very much.
Good idea, fine presentation for learners and well assistance for people who try self study, thanks. Can I download this video files?
Not sure if you've already downloaded the video but you can use a program called UA-cam Downloader to download videos from UA-cam. It works great.
thank you so much. Gread explanation
You're welcome. I'm pleased you found it helpful.
excellent explanation.i umderstood it fully
Very good video! Thanks for sharing.
One thing: the lack of South is confusing, and probably can introduce errors.
I would just explicitly use the term South when referring to a location south of the equator. It is more intuitive.
The purpose of UTM's quadrants (those 6 degree by 8 degree rectangles dividing each zone) is to indicate north/south position on the globe. Starting from 80 degrees south latitude, they start with the letter C, and come north to 84 degrees north latitude, ending with the letter X (X quadrant is 12 degrees high), omitting I and O because the are too close to 1 and 0. N is the first quadrant north of the equator. Naturally then, N and any quadrant subsequent to it is in the northern hemisphere. Any quadrant preceding N is in the southern hemisphere. So, look to the quadrant designation to tip you off as to hemisphere.
That said, some versions of UTM don't use quadrants, but instead use the letter N to refer to the northern hemisphere, and the letter S to refer to the southern hemisphere. This is confusing because when you see a full coordinate with an N or S, you don't know whether either letter refers to the hemisphere or to a quadrant. I think the N/S way of stating coordinates is going out of style in favor of using quadrant designations. Hope this helps.
You're welcome, spiderman. I'm glad you find it helpful. Best regards,
Thank you much it helped me to understand easily..
+shomesh deepan You are very welcome.
How can I convert cassin coordinates to utm coordinates?
Is Gauss Kruger the same as UTM? Similar?
Thanks this video helped me a lot.
+hemanth aradhyula I'm pleased you found it helpful.
Just great! good Job.
haha so good i watched it twice
thank you soo much for this video. it was so helpful to me.
+Wanjiku Wanjiru Glad it helped.
Northings increase in both hemispheres as you head north away from equator. very interesting indeed
Northings increase as you go north. In the southern hemisphere, northings get larger as you approach the equator. Once you pass the equator, the measurements "reset" to zero, and northings continue to increase as you go north. Northings always increase as you go north, no matter which hemisphere you're in. That's the way the system was set up.
great job
Thanks.
Hello, may I ask you some question?
Thank you sir. A beneficial video
You bet. I'm glad you find it helpful.
The reason the MGRS uses two letters is because they wanted to eliminate long number that can be a bit confusing to soldiers. The two letters represent a 100,000 area map based on the UTM zones. This way, they don’t have to mention the millions or hundred thousands place. It just makes for faster and easier referencing when communication grid coordinates. Great video and thanks for instruction, Sir! God bless. 🌎🌍🌏
I think there is mistake in calling the 80° and the 84° a latitudes they should be longitude am i right ?
Ahmad Bawab No. These are definitely latitude lines. Latitude lines run east and west around the globe, and are parallel to one another. Longitude lines run north and south, and converge at the poles. I hope this helps.
I'm missing something here...
You said, “Quadrant R - like all quadrants - is divided into 100,000 meters squared.”
If that’s the case, then there should be 1,800,000 meters in total going from quadrant C to quadrant X (the length of the y axis), as there are 18 quadrants from S to N.
Later, you said that the y axis starts at 110,400m and goes to 10,000,000 (for a total of 9,889,600 m), resets, and goes from 1 to 9,334,080 meters, meaning that the length of the y axis should be 9,889,600 + 9,334,080 = 19,223,680 meters running along the entire y axis.
The entire y axis should be either 1,800,000 meters OR 9,334,080 meters. Which is it?
The same problem exists on the X axis.
This discrepancy wasn’t addressed. I assume it’s distortion from the projection, but… how? Where? Why?
Thanks for pointing that out. Drives me nuts when people leave such to things unexplained
Thanks. It's encouraging to hear that. That's my goal.
I'm pleased you liked it. Actually, the graphics are copyrighted. But contact me through my web site at FloridaAdventuring. Do a search. You're sure to find it. There are "Contact Us" forms there. Use one to compose your message, and I'll get it. We'll figure something from there. Cheers.
This is a great video and very informative!
Is there a white paper or PowerPoint that's available to download that the video was made from?
Great explanation
Thanks
Thank you :) excellent explanation!
Cheers.
Good video
Thank you, great video
Brett Sutherland You bet. Glad you liked it.
Great! Good luck on your exam.
Nice!
Thanks great video
***** You bet.
Thank you.
excellent
Thank you very much Sir
+Justito Tanedo You're welcome.
Thanks a lot dude.
Luis Sibira You're welcome.
Reed, thanks for this best ever explaination! Is there some way to copy the graphics you use here, or order them?
Barry
good information,thanks alot
Very helpful, thank you!
Why not just give the easting a at the int'l dateline 0 m E and let the easting at the meridian fall where it may or just start start with the P meridian start with zone 1. Eastings are just confusing.
I'm not exactly sure why they set up the UTM system like they did, but just remember that each zone has its own eastings.
Thanks for make clear. ....
You bet.
Thank you very much!
Bro! How can each quadrant have 1,000,000 meters N x 600,000 meters E when you only gave us 8,889,600 meters to divide between 10 quadrants from south to the equator. From west to east within each zone 666,720 meters is more than six 100,000 meter squares. What did I miss?
Dennis Rogles Good question. Let's look at the northern hemisphere, for example. There are 10 quadrants from the equator to the 84-degree latitude line. The northing at the equator is 0 meters north. The largest valid northing in the northern hemisphere is 9,334,080 meters north. Now, here's where the whole thing gets tricky, to me at least. Each of those zones is not really a rectangle, but is bordered by longitude lines. In fact, each zone is 6 degrees of longitude wide. This means the zones get smaller as you go toward each pole. So, my representation of them being 6 equal squares wide from top to bottom is not exactly accurate, and neither was my understanding of zones at the time, which I thought were rectangular. Live and learn. Neither is my representation of them being exactly 10 squares tall. This is an approximation. Now, the big picture -- Each quadrangle (except X, which is taller) is roughly 1,000,000 meters tall, "roughly" being the key word. So 1,000,000 meters x 10 quadrangles = roughly 10,000,000 meters, which is of course very close to 9,334,080 meters. I hope this helps. This to me is the trickiest part of the whole UTM grid system. But good news for most land navigators is we normally concern ourselves with such a small area of operations, that we don't even have to understand the UTM design at this level. Still, it's good to know. Thanks for your interest. I hope my video has been of some help to you. Cheers.
koodos to you sir!
Very clear Thanks
helpful and concise
thanks a lot....very helpfull
Oops! Ten is NOT correct. The answer--according to my tea leaves :-) --is around 8.9 squares, as follows: There are 60 nautical miles in a degree of latitude. 60 nautical miles equal 111.12 km (divide by .539956803), or 111,120 meters. 111,120 meters x 8 degrees tall for a zone = 888,960 meters tall. As a check, multiply by 84 degrees (the northernmost UTM boundary) by 111,120 and you get 9,334,080, the maximum northing in the northern hemisphere. Thanks for your keen eye.
No worries.
how to get its North or its South: 3251412
Gud question. I too had the same question
+Jeevan Babu i think i got the answer , i was watching this video again and it struck me ...to get whether it is north or south of same Northing, check the actual location with reference to equator. for example if you want a location in India which is North to Equator you can understand that it is towards North