The Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) is the geocoordinate standard used by NATO militaries for locating points on Earth. The MGRS is derived from the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid system and the Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) grid system, but uses a different labeling convention. The MGRS is used as geocode for the entire Earth.
An example of an MGRS coordinate, or grid reference, would be [21_18_34.0_N_157_55_0.7_W_&language=en 4QFJ12345678], which consists of three parts: 4Q (grid zone designator, GZD) FJ (the 100,000-meter square identifier) 1234 5678 (numerical location; easting is 1234 and northing is 5678, in this case specifying a location with 10 m resolution)
An MGRS grid reference is a point reference system. When the term 'grid square' is used, it can refer to a square with a side length of , 1 km, , 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 is a better descriptor of these 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 polygon will remain within the boundaries of the less precise polygon. Related to this is the primacy of the southwest corner of the polygon being the labeling point for an entire polygon. 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.
4Q ......................GZD only, precision level 6° × 8° (in most cases) 4Q FJ ...................GZD and 100 km Grid Square ID, precision level 100 km 4Q FJ 1 6 ...............precision level 10 km 4Q FJ 12 67 .............precision level 1 km 4Q FJ 123 678 ...........precision level 100 m 4Q FJ 1234 6789 .........precision level 10 m 4Q FJ 12345 67890 .......precision level 1 m
Grid zone designation
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.
As Figure 1 illustrates, Honolulu is in grid zone 4Q.
100,000-meter square identification
The second part of an MGRS coordinate is the 100,000-meter square identification. Each UTM zone is divided into 100,000 meter squares, so that their corners have UTM-coordinates that are multiples of 100,000 meters. The identification consists of a column letter (A–Z, omitting I and O) followed by a row letter (A–V, omitting I and O).
Near the equator, the columns of UTM zone 1 have the letters A–H, the columns of UTM zone 2 have the letters J–R (omitting O), and the columns of UTM zone 3 have the letters S–Z. At zone 4, the column letters start over from A, and so on around the world.
For the row letters, there are actually two alternative lettering schemes within MGRS: In the AA scheme, also known as MGRS-New, which is used for WGS84 and some other modern geodetic datums, the letter for the first row – just north of the equator – is A in odd-numbered zones, and F in even-numbered zones, as shown in figure 1. Note that the westmost square in this row, in zone 1, has identification AA. In the alternative AL scheme, also known as MGRS-Old, which is used for some older geodetic datums, the row letters are shifted 10 steps in the alphabet. This means that the letter for the first row is L in odd-numbered zones and R in even-numbered zones. The westmost square in the first row, in zone 1, has identification AL.