Coordinates Converter
Paste a latitude and longitude in any common notation, or a UTM position. You get decimal degrees, DMS, decimal minutes and UTM.
Sources: Karney 2011 Updated
- Decimal degrees
- 40.712800, -74.006000
- Degrees, minutes, seconds
- 40°42′46.1″N 74°00′21.6″W
- Degrees and decimal minutes
- 40°42.7680′N 74°00.3600′W
- UTM (zone, easting, northing in m)
- 18T 583959 4507351
Open this point in OpenStreetMap or Google Maps. The link sends the coordinates to that site.
How the formats relate
A position on Earth is two angles: latitude, measured north or south of the equator, and longitude, measured east or west of the Greenwich meridian. The three angle notations differ only in how the fraction of a degree is written.
- Decimal degrees (DD): 40.7128, −74.0060. One signed number each.
- Degrees, minutes, seconds (DMS): 40°42′46.1″N 74°00′21.6″W. A degree has 60 minutes and a minute 60 seconds.
- Degrees and decimal minutes (DDM): 40°42.768′N 74°00.360′W. Common on marine GPS units.
decimal degrees = degrees + minutes ÷ 60 + seconds ÷ 3600
The result is negative for south latitudes and west longitudes.
Worked example: 40.7128° to DMS
- The whole number is the degrees: 40°.
- Multiply the rest by 60: 0.7128 × 60 = 42.768. The whole number is the minutes: 42′.
- Multiply the rest by 60 again: 0.768 × 60 = 46.08. These are the seconds: 46.1″ to one decimal.
- Positive latitude is north: 40°42′46.1″N.
How precise is a decimal place?
One degree of longitude at the equator is 111.32 km (the equatorial circumference of the WGS 84 ellipsoid, 2π × 6,378,137 m, divided by 360). Each further decimal place divides that by ten. East-west distances shrink towards the poles; north-south distances stay close to these figures.
| Decimal places | Step in degrees | On the ground (equator) |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 111.32 km |
| 1 | 0.1 | 11.13 km |
| 2 | 0.01 | 1.113 km |
| 3 | 0.001 | 111.3 m |
| 4 | 0.0001 | 11.13 m |
| 5 | 0.00001 | 1.113 m |
| 6 | 0.000001 | 11.1 cm |
In DMS, one second of arc is about 30.9 m at the equator and a tenth of a second about 3.1 m. This tool shows seconds to one decimal and decimal degrees to six places.
About the UTM result
UTM positions are worked out on the WGS 84 ellipsoid with the Krüger series for the transverse Mercator projection, a scale factor of 0.9996 on the central meridian, a false easting of 500,000 m and, in the southern hemisphere, a false northing of 10,000,000 m. The result is shown as zone number, latitude band letter, easting and northing, rounded to whole meters, for example 18T 583959 4507351.
The zone is normally 6° wide. The two standard exceptions are applied: south-west Norway is placed in zone 32, and Svalbard uses zones 31, 33, 35 and 37. UTM is not defined beyond 80°S and 84°N. For surveying or legal boundaries, use the coordinate system and software your authority prescribes.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between decimal degrees and DMS?
They are two ways of writing the same angle. Decimal degrees use one number per coordinate, such as 40.7128. Degrees, minutes and seconds split it into 40° 42′ 46.1″, where a minute is 1/60 of a degree and a second is 1/60 of a minute. Map software usually wants decimal degrees; paper charts and older documents use DMS.
Do negative coordinates mean south and west?
Yes. In decimal degrees, latitude is positive north of the equator and negative south of it; longitude is positive east of Greenwich and negative west. −74.0060 is the same as 74.0060° W.
How many decimal places do I need?
Four decimal places of a degree are about 11 meters on the ground and five about 1.1 meters. Six places (about 11 cm) is finer than most consumer GPS receivers can measure.
Which order is right, latitude or longitude first?
Latitude first is the common convention for people and for most map websites. Some file formats and programming libraries put longitude first. If a point lands on the wrong continent, the two numbers are probably swapped.
What is UTM?
The Universal Transverse Mercator grid divides the Earth into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide, and gives a position in meters: an easting and a northing. It is used on topographic maps because distances can be read straight off the grid. It covers latitudes from 80°S to 84°N.
Sources
- Karney, C. F. F. (2011), Transverse Mercator with an accuracy of a few nanometers, Journal of Geodesy 85 — the Krüger series used for UTM, implemented here to the third order; citation checked, the implementation is validated by round-trip and reference-point tests (checked October 12, 2026)
- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, The Universal Grids and the Transverse Mercator and Polar Stereographic Map Projections (NGA.SIG.0012_2.0.0_UTMUPS) — UTM zones, the scale factor 0.9996 and false easting and northing; WGS 84 ellipsoid a = 6,378,137 m, 1/f = 298.257223563