Coordinate formats
| Format | Example (Statue of Liberty) | Used by |
|---|---|---|
| Decimal degrees (DD) | 40.68925, −74.04450 | Google Maps, web maps, spreadsheets |
| Degrees minutes seconds (DMS) | 40°41′21.3″ N 74°02′40.2″ W | Paper maps, deeds, aviation charts |
| Degrees decimal minutes (DDM) | 40°41.3550′ N 74°02.6700′ W | Marine GPS, geocaching |
| UTM | 18T 580735.8 E 4504700.7 N | Topographic maps, search and rescue, GIS |
The converter accepts commas or spaces between latitude and longitude, the hemisphere letters N, S, E and W, and the symbols °, ′ and ″ or plain apostrophes and quotes.
DMS and decimal degrees
A degree is divided into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds, just like an hour. To go from DMS to decimal degrees, divide minutes by 60 and seconds by 3,600 and add them to the degrees. To go the other way, multiply the fractional part by 60 twice. The sign carries the hemisphere: north and east are positive, south and west are negative. So 33°52′08″ S 151°12′30″ E (Sydney) becomes −33.868889, 151.208333.
How many decimal places?
| Decimal places | Precision at the equator | Enough to identify |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11.1 km | A large city or district |
| 2 | 1.1 km | A village or neighborhood |
| 3 | 111 m | A large field or campus |
| 4 | 11.1 m | A building or parcel of land |
| 5 | 1.1 m | A tree or a parked car; typical phone GPS |
| 6 | 11 cm | Survey-grade receivers |
One degree of latitude is about 111 km everywhere. A degree of longitude shrinks towards the poles by the cosine of the latitude: about 85 km at 40° N and 56 km at 60° N.
UTM coordinates
UTM splits the Earth between 80° S and 84° N into 60 zones of 6° longitude, each with its own transverse Mercator projection. Inside a zone, positions are given in meters, which makes measuring distances on a map easy: two points 1,000 m apart in easting are one kilometer apart. The letter after the zone number (C to X, skipping I and O) is the latitude band. It is not needed for the math, but it tells you the hemisphere at a glance: N and above are north of the equator. The converter uses the WGS84 ellipsoid and the Krüger series, which are accurate to well under a millimeter inside a zone.
To measure the straight-line distance between two coordinates, use the map scale calculator for paper maps, or see the world map for countries and capitals.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you convert DMS to decimal degrees?
Decimal degrees = degrees + minutes ÷ 60 + seconds ÷ 3,600. For 40°41′21″ N: 40 + 41/60 + 21/3,600 = 40.689167°. Latitudes south of the equator and longitudes west of Greenwich are written with a minus sign.
How do you convert decimal degrees to degrees, minutes and seconds?
Keep the whole number as degrees, multiply the decimal part by 60 to get minutes, then multiply the remaining decimal by 60 for seconds. For −74.0445: 74°, 0.0445 × 60 = 2.67′ → 2′, 0.67 × 60 = 40.2″, so 74°02′40.2″ W.
How do I get coordinates from Google Maps?
On a computer, right-click the spot on the map; the first line of the menu shows the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees and copies them when clicked. On a phone, press and hold to drop a pin and the coordinates appear in the search box.
What is a UTM coordinate?
Universal Transverse Mercator divides the world into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide, and gives positions in meters: an easting (distance from a false origin 500,000 m west of the zone's central meridian) and a northing (distance from the equator, plus 10,000,000 m in the southern hemisphere).
Which UTM zone am I in?
Zone number = floor((longitude + 180) ÷ 6) + 1. The contiguous United States spans zones 10 (West Coast) to 19 (Maine); New York City is in zone 18, Chicago in 16, Denver in 13 and Los Angeles in 11. Norway and Svalbard have a few special wider zones.
Are WGS84 and NAD83 coordinates the same?
Almost. GPS uses WGS84, while most U.S. maps use NAD83. In North America the two differ by about 1 to 2 meters, which matters for surveying but not for navigation or hiking.