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How to Find Your UTM Zone

Last updated 26 September 2026

Work out the UTM zone and hemisphere for any site from its longitude, with the zones for the Gulf, Pakistan, India and other common regions.

The rule

UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) splits the world into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide, numbered eastwards starting at 180°W. For a site at a given longitude:

zone = floor((longitude + 180) ÷ 6) + 1

Use negative longitudes for the west. For example, Dubai at 55.3°E: (55.3 + 180) ÷ 6 = 39.2, so floor gives 39, plus 1 is zone 40. London at 0.1°W: (−0.1 + 180) ÷ 6 = 29.98 → 29 + 1 = zone 30.

North or south

Add N for sites north of the equator and S for sites south of it. Northings in the south start at 10,000,000 m at the equator and decrease towards the pole, so the same numbers mean a completely different place in 40N and 40S.

The EPSG code

On the WGS 84 datum, UTM codes follow a pattern: 326xx for north and 327xx for south, where xx is the zone. Zone 40N is EPSG:32640 and zone 55S is EPSG:32755. National versions exist too, such as GDA2020 (MGA) in Australia and SIRGAS 2000 in Brazil, with their own codes.

Zones for common regions

  • United Arab Emirates: 39N west of 54°E (Al Dhafra, Ruwais); 40N from 54°E (Abu Dhabi city, Dubai, the northern emirates)
  • Qatar, Bahrain: 39N
  • Kuwait: 38N
  • Saudi Arabia: 37N (Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah), 38N (Riyadh), 39N (Dammam, Al Khobar); 36N in the far north-west and 40N in the far south-east
  • Oman: 39N in the far west, 40N for most of the country including Muscat
  • Pakistan: 41N (Gwadar, Turbat), 42N (Karachi, Quetta, Multan, Peshawar), 43N (Lahore, Islamabad)
  • India: 42N to 47N — 43N for Mumbai and Delhi, 44N for Hyderabad and Chennai, 45N for Kolkata
  • Egypt: 35N west of 30°E, 36N from 30°E including Cairo, and 37N for a small corner in the far south-east
  • United Kingdom: 29N, 30N and 31N (most of England is 30N) — though the British National Grid is more usual

Each zone has its own page with a converter already set to it, for example UTM zone 40N or UTM zone 42N. All zones are listed under world-wide coordinate systems.

Sites near a zone edge

A project that crosses a zone boundary is usually kept in one zone, chosen by the client or the survey specification, even if part of it lies just outside. Check the drawing or control sheet rather than working it out from the longitude. There are also a few official exceptions, such as around Norway and Svalbard.

Not sure at all?

In the web and Windows apps, type a rough latitude and longitude in Near this under Coordinate system, and the list narrows to the systems whose area of use covers that spot. Points that fall outside the chosen zone are flagged after conversion.

Try it with your own sheet

Open the web app Find your grid

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