UTM zones in India: a state-by-state reference
India spans six UTM zones. Find the zone and EPSG code for your project state, and learn what to do when a site straddles a zone boundary.
· 5 min read · reneGIS team
The UTM system divides the world into 60 zones, each 6° of longitude wide. India stretches from about 68°E at the Gujarat coast to about 97°E in Arunachal Pradesh, so it spans six of them: zones 42 to 47. All of India lies north of the equator, so every Indian UTM coordinate is in the northern hemisphere.
The zone formula
For any longitude:
zone = floor((longitude + 180) / 6) + 1
central meridian = zone × 6 − 183
Longitude 76.02°E gives floor(256.02 / 6) + 1 = 43, with a central meridian at 75°E. Each zone's eastings run from roughly 167,000 m to 833,000 m, with 500,000 m at the central meridian.
Zones by state
The table gives the zone that covers most of each state. States marked with two zones are split, and projects near the boundary should check the exact longitude of the site.
| Zone | Central meridian | Longitude span | EPSG (WGS84) | States and territories (predominantly) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42N | 69°E | 66°E to 72°E | 32642 | Western Gujarat (Kutch, Saurashtra coast), western Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, Barmer) |
| 43N | 75°E | 72°E to 78°E | 32643 | Eastern Gujarat, most of Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal, western Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, western Tamil Nadu |
| 44N | 81°E | 78°E to 84°E | 32644 | Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, eastern Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, eastern Tamil Nadu, western Odisha |
| 45N | 87°E | 84°E to 90°E | 32645 | Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, eastern Odisha, Sikkim, western Assam, Meghalaya |
| 46N | 93°E | 90°E to 96°E | 32646 | Central and eastern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, western Arunachal Pradesh |
| 47N | 99°E | 96°E to 102°E | 32647 | Eastern Arunachal Pradesh |
Wind-heavy states worth noting: Gujarat's wind corridor around Kutch is zone 42N while the Saurashtra sites around Rajkot and Bhavnagar are near the 42/43 boundary at 72°E. The Madhya Pradesh wind belt around Ratlam, Agar Malwa, Ujjain and Mandsaur (roughly 74.5°E to 76.5°E) sits comfortably in 43N. Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts are in 44N; Coimbatore and Tirupur straddle 77°E to 78°E and are in 43N.
Sites on a zone boundary
A project that crosses a zone boundary has two choices.
- Split the site. Use the correct zone for each side. Distances measured across the boundary must then go through latitude and longitude, not through eastings.
- Extend one zone. Project the whole site into a single zone, accepting slightly more distortion on the far side. UTM stays usable for a degree or two outside its zone, and most CAD teams prefer one coordinate system per drawing.
Whichever you choose, write the zone into the drawing title block and into every coordinate table. A UTM coordinate without its zone is not a location.
Latitude bands
You will often see the zone written with a letter, for example 43Q or 43R. The letter is an 8° latitude band from the military grid reference system. For India the bands are P (8°N to 16°N), Q (16°N to 24°N), R (24°N to 32°N) and S (32°N to 40°N). The letter is a convenience; the hemisphere is what the projection actually needs, and any letter from N upwards means north.
Checking a zone quickly
Paste a coordinate into the reneGIS Coordinate Converter. It reports the zone, band and hemisphere, shows the zone boundaries on the map, and lets you project into a neighbouring zone when a site straddles the line.