EPSG Codes for WGS 84 / UTM Zones

Short answer

Every WGS 84 / UTM zone has a unique EPSG code, and the pattern is simple:

• Northern hemisphere: EPSG:326NN — for example, EPSG:32650 is WGS 84 / UTM zone 50N.
• Southern hemisphere: EPSG:327NN — for example, EPSG:32718 is WGS 84 / UTM zone 18S.

NN is the two-digit UTM zone number (01–60). All of these systems are projected, metre-based coordinate systems built on the WGS 84 datum — which is exactly what you want for measuring distance, area, and buffers. For background on what an EPSG code is, see what an EPSG code means in GIS; for when to use UTM at all, see WGS84 vs UTM.

How to find your UTM zone

1. Take the longitude (in decimal degrees) of your area of interest.
2. Compute zone = floor((longitude + 180) / 6) + 1. This gives a number from 1 to 60.
3. Choose the N code if your area is north of the equator, the S code if it is south.
4. Look up the EPSG code in the tables below.

Tip: each UTM zone is 6° of longitude wide. Data that spans more than one zone is usually better analysed in a single national or equal-area projection than forced into one UTM zone.

EPSG codes — Northern hemisphere (WGS 84 / UTM zone N)

EPSG codes — Southern hemisphere (WGS 84 / UTM zone S)

Most-looked-up zones

• EPSG:32650 — WGS 84 / UTM zone 50N (114°E–120°E): China, Philippines.
• EPSG:32718 — WGS 84 / UTM zone 18S (78°W–72°W): Peru, western South America.
• EPSG:32719 — WGS 84 / UTM zone 19S (72°W–66°W): Chile, Bolivia, western Argentina.
• EPSG:32632 — WGS 84 / UTM zone 32N (6°E–12°E): Germany, Italy, Nigeria.
• EPSG:4326 — WGS 84 geographic (latitude/longitude, degrees). Not a UTM zone; use it for storage and exchange, then reproject to the matching zone above for measurement.

Worked example: from longitude to reprojected data

Suppose your project area is centred near 13.4°E, 52.5°N (Berlin).

1. Zone = floor((13.4 + 180) / 6) + 1 = floor(32.23) + 1 = 33.
2. North of the equator, so use the N code: EPSG:32633 (WGS 84 / UTM zone 33N).
3. Reproject your WGS 84 geographic data into it. With GDAL:

ogr2ogr -t_srs EPSG:32633 sites_utm.gpkg sites_wgs84.gpkg   # vector
gdalwarp -t_srs EPSG:32633 -r bilinear dem_4326.tif dem_utm33.tif   # raster

In PostGIS, reproject a geometry already tagged as 4326:

SELECT ST_Transform(ST_SetSRID(geom, 4326), 32633) AS geom_utm FROM sites;

Now distances and areas (ST_Length, ST_Area, buffers) return metres, because EPSG:32633 is a metre-based projected system. The defining parameters of every northern UTM zone are a Transverse Mercator projection with scale factor 0.9996 on the central meridian, a 500,000 m false easting, and 0 m false northing; the southern zones add a 10,000,000 m false northing so that y-values stay positive below the equator.

Common pitfalls

• Assigning instead of reprojecting. Tagging data with a UTM EPSG code does not move the coordinates — it only relabels them. See assign CRS vs reproject.
• Using Web Mercator (EPSG:3857) for measurement. Web Mercator is for tiles, not distance or area. See why Web Mercator is not an analysis projection.
• Picking the wrong hemisphere. 326NN and 327NN differ only by the false northing; choosing the wrong one shifts data by 10,000 km.
• Forcing a multi-zone area into one zone. Distortion grows toward the zone edges; a dataset spanning several zones is better in a national or equal-area projection.

Sources

• EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset (epsg.org)
• epsg.io — search EPSG codes (e.g. EPSG:32633)
• GDAL gdalwarp
• GDAL ogr2ogr
• PostGIS ST_Transform