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Learn about the history, features and uses of the Mercator projection, a conformal cylindrical map projection presented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. The Mercator projection is widely used for navigation, web maps and atlases, but it distorts the size and shape of landmasses near the poles.
Learn how to measure and communicate positions on Earth using latitude and longitude, and how different geodetic datums affect the coordinates. Explore the history and standards of the geographic coordinate system and its applications in cartography and geodesy.
UTM is a map projection system that assigns coordinates to locations on the Earth's surface, ignoring altitude and treating the Earth as a perfect ellipsoid. It divides the Earth into 60 zones, each 6 degrees of longitude wide, and uses a transverse Mercator projection with a standard scale factor of 0.9996.
Learn how to convert geographic coordinates among different formats, systems and datums. Find formulas, methods and examples for latitude, longitude, height and other parameters.
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Learn about the ancient and modern concepts, methods and challenges of measuring longitude, and the role of time, eclipses, telescopes and clocks.
A meridian is a line of longitude connecting points of equal angle east or west of a prime meridian. Learn about the history, definition, and effects of the prime meridian, as well as the magnetic meridian and the International Meridian Conference.
A projected coordinate system is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinates (x, y) on a planar surface created by a particular map projection. The term easting is used to refer to the x coordinate in many systems such as UTM, and is often paired with northing, the y coordinate.
A spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) is a framework used to precisely measure locations on the surface of Earth as coordinates. It consists of a coordinate system, a datum, and a projection, and can be geographic, geocentric, projected, or engineering.