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Military Grid Reference System
The Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) is the geocoordinate standard used by NATO militaries for geo-referencing, position reporting, and situational awareness during land operations. An MGRS coordinate does not represent a single point, but rather defines a square grid area on the Earth's surface. The location of a specific point is therefore referenced by the MGRS coordinate of the area that contains it. The MGRS is derived from the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) and Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) grid systems and is used as a geocode for the entire Earth.
An example of an MGRS coordinate, or grid reference, is 4Q FJ 1234 6789, which consists of three parts:
For machine-readability and database storage, all spaces may be removed.
An MGRS grid reference represents a square area on the Earth's surface, rather than a single point. A grid square references a square or polygon on the Earth with a side length of 10 km, 1 km, 100 m, 10 m or 1 m, depending on the precision of the coordinates provided. (In some cases, squares adjacent to a Grid Zone Junction (GZJ) are clipped, so "polygon" may be a better descriptor of such areas.)
The number of digits in the numerical location must be even: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10, depending on the desired precision. When changing precision levels, it is important to truncate rather than round the easting and northing values to ensure the more precise square will remain within the boundaries of the less precise square.
Related to this is the primacy of the southwest corner of the square being the labeling point for the entire square. (In instances where the polygon is not a square and has been clipped by a grid zone junction, the polygon keeps the label of the southwest corner as if it had not been clipped.)
Google Maps recognizes MGRS grid references which have a one-meter square precision (10-digit numerical location) with spaces permitted only between the 100,000-meter square, the easting, and the northing: e.g., 4QFJ 12345 67890. The mapping application returns a dropped pin representing the centroid of the area referenced.
The first part of an MGRS coordinate is the grid-zone designation. The 6° wide UTM zones, numbered 1–60, are intersected by latitude bands that are normally 8° high, lettered C–X (omitting I and O). The northmost latitude band, X, is 12° high. The intersection of a UTM zone and a latitude band is (normally) a 6° × 8° polygon called a grid zone, whose designation in MGRS is formed by the zone number (one or two digits – the number for zones 1 to 9 is just a single digit, according to the example in DMA TM 8358.1, Section 3-2, Figure 7), followed by the latitude band letter (uppercase). This same notation is used in both UTM and MGRS, i.e. the UTM grid reference system; the article on Universal Transverse Mercator shows many maps of these grid zones, including the irregularities for Svalbard and southwest Norway.
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Military Grid Reference System
The Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) is the geocoordinate standard used by NATO militaries for geo-referencing, position reporting, and situational awareness during land operations. An MGRS coordinate does not represent a single point, but rather defines a square grid area on the Earth's surface. The location of a specific point is therefore referenced by the MGRS coordinate of the area that contains it. The MGRS is derived from the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) and Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) grid systems and is used as a geocode for the entire Earth.
An example of an MGRS coordinate, or grid reference, is 4Q FJ 1234 6789, which consists of three parts:
For machine-readability and database storage, all spaces may be removed.
An MGRS grid reference represents a square area on the Earth's surface, rather than a single point. A grid square references a square or polygon on the Earth with a side length of 10 km, 1 km, 100 m, 10 m or 1 m, depending on the precision of the coordinates provided. (In some cases, squares adjacent to a Grid Zone Junction (GZJ) are clipped, so "polygon" may be a better descriptor of such areas.)
The number of digits in the numerical location must be even: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10, depending on the desired precision. When changing precision levels, it is important to truncate rather than round the easting and northing values to ensure the more precise square will remain within the boundaries of the less precise square.
Related to this is the primacy of the southwest corner of the square being the labeling point for the entire square. (In instances where the polygon is not a square and has been clipped by a grid zone junction, the polygon keeps the label of the southwest corner as if it had not been clipped.)
Google Maps recognizes MGRS grid references which have a one-meter square precision (10-digit numerical location) with spaces permitted only between the 100,000-meter square, the easting, and the northing: e.g., 4QFJ 12345 67890. The mapping application returns a dropped pin representing the centroid of the area referenced.
The first part of an MGRS coordinate is the grid-zone designation. The 6° wide UTM zones, numbered 1–60, are intersected by latitude bands that are normally 8° high, lettered C–X (omitting I and O). The northmost latitude band, X, is 12° high. The intersection of a UTM zone and a latitude band is (normally) a 6° × 8° polygon called a grid zone, whose designation in MGRS is formed by the zone number (one or two digits – the number for zones 1 to 9 is just a single digit, according to the example in DMA TM 8358.1, Section 3-2, Figure 7), followed by the latitude band letter (uppercase). This same notation is used in both UTM and MGRS, i.e. the UTM grid reference system; the article on Universal Transverse Mercator shows many maps of these grid zones, including the irregularities for Svalbard and southwest Norway.