Google Maps doesn’t accept UTM coordinates. It only understands degrees: decimal (39.739236, -104.984862), degrees-minutes-seconds, or degrees with decimal minutes. If someone hands you a UTM coordinate (from a topo map, a search and rescue form, a field report or a GIS layer), you have to convert it to latitude and longitude before pasting it into the search box. And if you need the UTM of a spot you see in Google Maps, copy its coordinates and convert them the other way. Here are both, with real examples in three different zones.
What a UTM coordinate is
A UTM coordinate tells you where a point is in meters, on a grid. The world is split into 60 zones, each 6 degrees of longitude wide, and within each zone a position is given by two numbers:
- Easting: meters to the east. To avoid negative numbers, the zone’s central meridian is set at 500,000 m; a point just west of it has a slightly smaller easting.
- Northing: meters north of the equator.
In front goes the zone (1 to 60) and, often, a latitude band letter. Here’s how to read the UTM of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver:
Without the zone, a UTM coordinate is useless: the same numbers exist in all 60 zones around the world.
UTM zones of the United States
The lower 48 states cover ten zones, from 10 on the Pacific coast to 19 in Maine. Zones follow longitude, not state lines:
Some states sit in two or three zones. Texas spans zones 13, 14 and 15; California, 10 and 11. If a document doesn’t state the zone, ask: some agencies use a single zone for their whole area even where part of it falls in the next one, and many state agencies use their own State Plane system instead of UTM.
From UTM to Google Maps, step by step
- Open UTM to latitude and longitude on Mapsfera.
- Pick the default zone or type it in each row with its letter, like
13S. If the coordinate is in the southern hemisphere, set it to S. - Type the easting and the northing. If you have many, paste the whole list, one per line.
- Copy the latitude and longitude it gives you and paste them into the Google Maps search box. Follow the rules in how to get coordinates from Google Maps: a period for decimals and latitude first.
With the three examples, one per zone:
| Place | UTM (WGS 84) | Lat, long for Google Maps |
|---|---|---|
| Mount Whitney | 11S 384409 4048901 | 36.578581, -118.291994 |
| Colorado State Capitol | 13S 501297 4398816 | 39.739236, -104.984862 |
| Statue of Liberty | 18T 580736 4504700 | 40.689247, -74.044502 |
Look at the Statue of Liberty: zone 18, easting 580,736, so it’s east of that zone’s central meridian (75° W). Convert it with zone 17 by mistake and the point lands about 500 km (310 miles) to the west, in Pennsylvania.
From Google Maps to UTM
- In Google Maps, right-click the spot. The first line of the menu is its coordinates: click it to copy them.
- Open Mapsfera’s coordinate converter and paste them.
- Read the UTM: it comes with its zone. If you need a different zone (for example, the one your agency uses for the whole county), pick it in the converter. The converter also gives you MGRS, the format the US National Grid uses.
On a phone, touch and hold the spot in Google Maps and copy the coordinates from the search box (Android) or the place sheet (iPhone).
The datum: NAD 83, NAD 27 and WGS 84
A UTM coordinate also depends on its datum, the model of the Earth used to compute it. In the US you’ll run into three:
- NAD 83: the current official datum, used by federal and state agencies and on current USGS US Topo maps.
- NAD 27: the old one. Many older USGS topo maps and old records use it. The same point can shift tens of meters between NAD 27 and NAD 83, more in some parts of the country than others.
- WGS 84: the one used by GPS and Google Maps. It’s within about 1 to 2 meters of NAD 83, so for finding a place you can treat them as equal.
If a coordinate is in NAD 27, convert it to NAD 83 first with NOAA’s free NCAT tool, and then to degrees.
Common mistakes
- Mixing up easting and northing. In the lower 48, the northing is the long one: seven digits (millions of meters from the equator). The easting has six.
- Forgetting the zone. The same easting and northing in zone 14 instead of 13 is roughly 500 km away.
- Mixing datums. If the point lands tens of meters off from where it should be, suspect NAD 27 treated as NAD 83, or the reverse.
- Thousands separators. Type
4398816, not4,398,816: many tools read the comma as a separator between two numbers.
When you’ll need UTM
You’ll see UTM on USGS topographic maps, which have the grid printed on them, in search and rescue and wildfire work, in forestry and geology field notes, and in many GIS layers. If you’re working with a piece of land, you can measure it and get its corners in the area calculator.