[GIS] How to convert 6 & 7 digit coordinates to degrees latitude & longitude

coordinate systemlatitude longitudespatial-database

I'm a bit new to the whole GIS world, and though I am making great headway drawing polygons and such in Bing Maps, I am currently stuck. In our SQL spatial data, I came across MULTIPOLYGON data, where all the coordinate values are very large numbers (6 digits and 7 digits for what should be latitude and longitude, before the decimal). I found an SQL method to dismantle the multi-polygon into several polygons, but those large values do not work in Bing Maps nor Google Maps. So I've been searching for an algorithm to convert those large numbers down to what I have perceived as regular latitude/longitude numbers, such as 45.19167 -93.58328 (which does work on online maps).

With that said, could somebody please either show me or point me in a great direction to learning how to convert 631456.83, 3816200.79 to something I can use online. I know the coordinates fall somewhere in Arizona.

Best Answer

Your coordinates are likely in UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) Eastings and Northings.

You can convert UTM coordinates to lat/long online using many different sites. Here in one. You can also perform this calculation in excel or inside of a database if you can work out the formula. Alternatively you can perform the conversion inside of a GIS such as QGIS or ArcGIS.

Before you can convert coordinates to lat/long you will need to know which UTM zone your coordinates fall in.

Here is an example for North America:

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In this example, most of Florida falls within the UTM zone 17N.

I came across this page by searching 'batch convert UTM to lat/long'.