Universal Transverse Mercator

The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) is a projected coordinate system based on the transverse Mercator map projection of the Earth spheroid. As a map projection, it transforms geographic coordinates of locations on Earth's surface to assign plane coordinates to them. It is a horizontal position representation, which means it ignores altitude and treats the earth surface as an oblate ellipsoid.

The system divides Earth into 60 zones and projects each to the plane as a basis for its coordinates.
Specifying a location means specifying the zone and the x, y coordinate in that plane.

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Source: Wikipedia · Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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