UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Cartographic Projection Procedures for the UNIX

Environment—A User’s Manual

by

Gerald I. Evenden1

Open-File Report 90–284

This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S.
Geological Survey editorial standards. Use of tradenames is for purposes of identi-
fication only and does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey.

May 13, 1990

(Revised 1st January 2003)

1 Woods Hole, MA 02543

ii
Contents
Introduction 1
History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Typological Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Basic Usage 2
Inputing Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Form of Input Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Data Output 5
Output of error data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Binary Input–Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Cartesian Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Cartographic Parameters 7
Selection of Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Specifying the Earth’s Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Common Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Projection descriptions 10

Cylindrical Projections 11

Pseudocylindrical Projections 21

Conic Projections 33

Azimuthal Projections 39

Miscellaneous Projections 49

U.S. State Plane Coordinate Systems (SPCS) 57

SPCS Conversion Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Appendix 1—Summary of basic commands 59

References 61

iii
iv
 Cartographic Projection Procedures for the UNIX
Environment—A User’s Manual
Gerald I. Evenden
1st January 2003

Abstract

A tutorial description of the general usage of the cartographic projection program proj
(release 3) along with specific cartographic parameters and illustrations of the ap-
proximately 70 cartographic projections supported by the program is presented. The
program is designed as a standard Unix filter utility to be employed with other pro-
grams in the generation of maps and charts and, in many cases, used in map digitizing
applications. Tables and shell scripts are also provided for conversion of State Plane
Coordinate Systems to and from geographic coordinates.

Introduction
Program proj (release 3) is a standard Unix filter function which converts ge-
ographic longitude and latitude coordinates into cartesian coordinates, (λ, φ) →
(x, y), by means of a wide variety of cartographic projection functions. For many
of the projection functions the inverse conversion, (x, y) → (λ, φ), can also be per-
formed. The principle purpose of this user’s manual is to provide complete details
of the technical usage and execution of program proj, supplemented with exam-
ples and some practical applications. However, cartographic characteristics of the
projections are given minimal coverage in this manual and the reader should refer
to Map Projections—A Working Manual (Snyder, 1987) and An Album of Map
Projections (Snyder and Voxland, 1989) for more complete discussions. Program
proj supplements these publications in terms of computational applications in the
Unix environment.
This manual is divided into three main sections:
• command line parameters controlling proj operation related to input-output
format and file control,
• specification and usage of general cartographic parameters, and
• description of specific projections and control parameter usage.
The style of the first two sections is tutorial and contains many examples of usage.
The first section is also summarized in the Unix man(1) style document available
on the host system or in system documentation. The reader is expected to have
basic familiarity with at least one of the Unix shell programs such as Bourne
(sh(1)), C (csh(1)) or Korn (ksh(1)).

History
The original proj was developed in the early 1980’s as a ratfor (a fortran pre-
processor) program (Evenden, 1983) with much of the code derived from the Geo-
logical Survey’s General Cartographic Transformation Package (gctp) (superceded

1
2 BASIC USAGE

by a more portable Version II by Elassal, 1987). Program proj was recoded in the
C language when the mapgen package (Evenden and Botbol, 1985), of which proj
is an integral part, was transfered to the Unix operating system. Based upon the
formularies in the aforementioned publications many new projections have been
added to the program. Source code for program proj is written in the Kernighan
and Ritchie (k&r) (1978) style and is available from the author.

Typological Conventions
As with mathematics texts, descriptions of computer software execution can use
typology to emphasize or augment the text with various fonts for clarification.
Examples of this usage have already been introduced with the slant font being
employed for program names. In addition to the slant font, references to standard
Unix utility programs will be suffixed with a number in parenthesis refering to the
chapter in standard Unix manuals. File names mentioned in the text will also be
in slant font.
For command line arguments, scripts or file contents a typewriter style font
will be employed (i.e. +proj=poly). The typewriter font is always used for literal
usage and explanations, but if part of the descriptive text is refering to an abstract
value to be completed later, then italics are used. For example, +proj=name is
used when discussing the argument name in the abstract sense and +proj=poly is
used for an exact definition of usage.
To ensure the recognition of the importance of a blank character in text descrip-
tions, the cup character, , is used. For example, the cup character in -f ’%.6f’
emphasizes that there is a blank after the -f and not a spacing operation of the
typesetter.

Basic Usage
In this section the basic execution of proj will be described with empasis on com-
mand line control and the nature of the input and output of the program. Since
previous releases of proj may be installed on the user’s host machine the user
must check and verify that he is using the proper release. This is readily done by
executing:
$ proj
which should result in the following message displayed on the user’s terminal:
usage(3.0): proj [ -bcefiormstwW [args] ] [ +opts[=arg] ] [ files ]
(note: $ is the shell prompt for interactive examples). The critical element of
the response is that 3.x appears. If the release 3 message does not appear or the
message
proj: not found
appears (indicating the program is not in the user’s search path) and consultation
with the host system manager is required.
The .x in the release number represents versions within the release that will
either contain corrections to the previous versions or new features that are compat-
ible with previous versions of the same release. Some of the hyphened command
line parameters of the previous release of proj (implicitly release 2, but never docu-
mented as such) are not compatible with the current version. However, for mapgen
users the current release is fully compatible.
Before the input and output data format and the hyphen-control arguments can
be discussed, a detail from the cartographic parameter section must be mentioned.
Inputing Data 3

Except for the above execution, proj requires the selection of a cartographic projec-
tion which is performed by the +proj=name option where name is the abbreviated
name of one of the supported projections. If a projection is not named, then the
following message will appear:
<proj>: projection not selected
program abnormally terminated
For the following examples +proj=poly (p. 36) will be used.

Inputing Data
There are two ways data are input to program proj: through stdin or files named
on the command line. The usage of stdin means that data can either be piped
from the stdout of a previous process on the runline by means of the | shell control
character, redirected from a file by <filename, or entered directly from the user’s
terminal if nothing is specified. For example:
cat file1 file2 | proj +proj=poly
proj +proj=poly file1 file2
will produce identical results where the files file1 and file2 are read and processed
in left to right order. The difference is that cat(1) is employed to put the data in
a stdout stream to be read by proj’s stdin. Sometimes it is convenient to execute
proj interactively:
$ proj +proj=poly
10 45
786491.58 5033320.60
-4 30
-385874.54 3326668.76
^D
$ ...
where ^D is the control D character for indicating the end of terminal input. The
large numbers are proj’s cartesian results (in meters) to the input values of longi-
tude and latitude values in degrees.
When file names are specified on a proj command line the data are only input
from these files and stdin is never read. Conversely, if there are no files specified
then input is assumed to be only from stdin. It is occasionally useful to process
data from both specified files and stdin. This can be achieved by using a - placed
in the command line where stdin is to be read by proj. For example:
cat file1 file2 | proj +proj=poly fileA - fileB
is equivalent to:
proj +proj=poly fileA file1 file2 fileB

Form of Input Data

As already demonstated, the input data consist of lines of two numeric values sep-
arated by “white space” (either blanks or tabs). The general case of specifying
geographic coordinates is somewhat more complex than the simple integral de-
grees used in the example discussed so far and it is necessary to introduce the dms
(Degrees, Minutes and Seconds) system. As an example, a typical value for lati-
tude would be 45◦ 250 15.2200 N. But because there is no degree symbol in the ascii
character set and imbedded blanks are not allowed, the equivalent dms value is ex-
pressed as 45d25’15.22"N or as 45d25’15.22. This example shows that intuitively
4 BASIC USAGE

obvious material at the end of the value may be dropped; viz., the positive sign
associated with N and the seconds symbol. If the latitude value is in the southern
hemisphere then either -45d25’15.22 or 45d25’15.22S is acceptable. Either a
prefix sign (+ or -) or suffix letter (upper or lower case N, S, E, W) may be used
and western longitude and southern latitude are always considered negative values.
If the geographic data are in degrees and fractional minutes then typical dms
values might be 33d22.5s and -120d45.666. Note that in this case the apostrophe
or minute mark can be dropped. Similarly, fractional degrees are simply expressed
by 77.5N or -33.33. The d and ’ are only required when respective minute and
second subfields are employed and act as subfield delimiters or when a preceeding
subfield is missing (i.e. 15’33.5 could be used when degrees are zero).
One important element to note is that although the use of suffix letter might
lead to the conclusion that proj would recognize the values as being longitude or
latitude, it does not. The values for forward projection are always in longitude
and latitude order on the record unless the -r command line option is used. For
example, if the input data are in latitude-longitude order then the earlier example
would be:
$ proj +proj=poly -r
45 10
786491.58 5033320.60
30 -4
-385874.54 3326668.76
^D
$ ...
To perform an inverse projection, either execute program invproj (which is just
an alternate name for proj) or use the command line parameter +inv. Conse-
quently,
invproj +proj=poly
proj +proj=poly +inv
are equivalent. Input data are now cartesian data in (x, y) order or, if the -r
command line switch is used, in (y, x) order. Typically, the form of the cartesian
data is in fixed format as shown in the output of the previous example, thus:
$ invproj +proj=poly
786491.58 5033320.60
10dE 45dN
-385874.54 3326668.76
4dW 30dN
^D
$ ...
An important feature of proj is its ability to pass through non-cartographic
information in the data file. If an input record contains a # as the first character
on the line it is simply copied to the output. Also, any information after the data
fields is copied to the output after the converted data. For example, a data file
cities contains:
# coordinates for a few cities
45d15n 71d07w Boston, United States
40d40n 73d58w New York, United States
48d51n 2d20e Paris, France
51d30n 7’w London, England
When proj processes this file the results are:
 5

$ proj +proj=poly -r cities

# coordinates for a few cities
-4887590.49 7317961.48 Boston, United States
-5542524.55 6982689.05 New York, United States
171224.94 5415352.81 Paris, France
-8101.66 5707500.23 London, England
If required, the default # tag character can be changed by means of the -tchar
command line switch, where char will become the new tag character.
Situations will arise where input data cannot be directly processed by proj and
one of the standard Unix utilities will be required as a prefilter. A typical example
is data stored in a “packed” format as shown in the file packed.data:
2205501202277
2215451201182
2216111201625
In this case assume that latitude and longitude are in degrees and hundredths
of minutes, with an implied decimal point, and western longitude is positive. A
solution with the Unix utility awk(1) would be:
awk -f unpack packed.data | tee /dev/tty | proj ...
where the contents of file unpack is the awk control script:
{
if (substr($0,1,1) == "#")
print
else {
lnd=substr($0,7,3)+0
lnm=substr($0,10,4)*.01
ltd=substr($0,1,2)+0
ltm=substr($0,3,4)*.01
printf "-%dd%.2f %dd%.2f%s\n", \
lnd,lnm,ltd,ltm,substr($0,14)
}
}
The intermediate results of awk’s output displayed by tee(1) on the user’s terminal
will appear as:
-120d22.77 22d05.50
-120d11.82 22d15.45
-120d16.25 22d16.11

Data Output
The previous sections have already demonstrated default forms of the data output
of proj: fixed format with two decimal digits of precision for forward projected
cartesian output and dms output of inverse projected geographic data. In the
latter case there is an implied default precision of ±0.000500 but trailing zeros and
zero subfields are not output. That is, if the seconds field is zero, it is dropped and
if both the seconds and minutes field are zero, both are dropped.
The output precision of the cartesian data can be controlled by the -f command
line option which provides use of a C language printf (3) floating point format
specification. But a change may be made without C software experience by simply
changing the number 2 in the default format control -f ’%.2f’ to the new, desired
precision. If four digits of precision are desired, then the command line would
appear as:
6 DATA OUTPUT

proj +proj=poly -f ’%.4f’ ...

For other changes, it might be wise for the user to seek the advice of a C program-
mer.
There are several modifications possible for inverse projection output of geo-
graphic data. If the previously discussed -f option is used, the output is simply
signed decimal degrees with specified fractional digits. dms output precision can
be altered with the -wdigits command line option where digits is the number of
significant fractional digits of the seconds output subfield. The range of digits can
be from 0 (integral seconds) to 9.
A more formal dms output may be generated with the -Wdigits command line
option. As with the -w option, digits is the precision of the seconds subfield, but
in this case all subfields are output and leading zeros are used in the seconds and
minutes field. An example command line of:
invproj +proj=poly -W0
would produce the following output:
0d53’56"E 1d48’31"N
56d01’54"W 32d53’22"S
2d21’49"W 40d36’44"N
0d00’00"W 0d00’00"N
When neither a -w, -W nor -f command line option is specified, -w3 is implicit for
dms output. Only one of these options should be selected.
For cartesian or geographic output the pair of output values are always sepa-
rated by a tab character and appear in respective (x, y) or (λ, φ) order regardless
of input data order. Output ordering can be reversed with the -s command line
switch.

Output of error data

Input data values that cannot not be processed by either basic proj input checking
procedures or transformation limitations of a particular projection will cause two
tab-separated * characters to be output (ancillary data will still be printed). For
example, a file bad.data contains the following geographic coordinates:
-10 45 point 1
-7.4 95 point 2
8.3 33 point 3
The output of a forward projection is:
-786491.58 5033320.60 point 1
* * point 2
774874.19 3683140.58 point 3
A latitude value of 95◦ is not valid.
The user may change the * error flags with the -e string command line option
where string may be any arbitrary message. Reprocessing the file bad.data with
the command line:
proj +proj=poly -e ’# -b #’ bad.data
will produce as output:
-786491.58 5033320.60 point 1
# -b # point 2
774874.19 3683140.58 point 3
Binary Input–Output 7

Binary Input–Output
In many cases, the conversion of input and output ascii data to internal proj binary
values may require up to 50 percent of the process execution time when using
less computationally intensive cartographic projections. Binary data also require
other cooperating programs capable of treating such input-output. In general, the
average user is not going to be involved in using this feature of proj, but should
be aware of it. Respective binary input and output is selected by the -i and -o
command line switches, or the -b switch when both input and output are binary.
One interesting binary operation, left to the user to try, is:

proj +proj=poly my.geog.data -o | invproj +proj=poly -i

Ancillary data are not passed through in binary operations, and data ordering and
format switches related to binary input or output are ignored.

Cartesian Scaling
The units of cartesian data are determined by the units used to define the Earth’s
radius or ellipsoidal axes which are typically in meters. Thus, previous examples
of cartesian data exhibit large values because of the default Earth parameters
employed by proj. In some applications, especially map making, it may be more
convenient to see the cartesian values in a more comprehendible range. This can
be performed by the command line option -m scale where the value the output
and input cartesian coordinates are respectively multiplied and divided by scale.
In addition, if the first two characters of scale are 1/ or 1: the reciprocal value
of the remaining number is employed as the scaling factor. This is a convenient
feature because most map scales are represented in this manner.
0
For example, the approximate size of a 7 12 quadrangle at a scale of 1:25,000 at
a latitude of 35◦ can be obtain by:

$ proj +proj=poly -m 1:25000 +lat_0=35 -f ’%.3f’

-3.75’ 35
-0.228 0.000
3.75’ 35
0.228 0.000
-3.75’ 35d7.5
-0.228 0.555
3.75’ 35d7.5
0.228 0.555

A latitude origin of 35◦ was introduced with +lat_0 to give clearer results. The
results show the map to be about 45 by 56 cm.

Cartographic Parameters
In this section the + prefixed command line parameters employed for controlling the
purely cartographic aspects of proj execution will be discussed. As has been shown
in previous examples they are in the general form of +param=value for specifying
a value to a projection parameter or +param when setting a switch or flag. Value
may be a geographic or angular coordinate in general dms format, a real number,
an integer number or an ascii string. In addition, value will be used in context
with the formularies in the Snyder references.
Two additional aspects of the +params should be noted: a mispelled parameter
name will be completely ignored and if a parameter is entered twice, only the
first occurence will be employed by proj. The former condition usually leads to
8 CARTOGRAPHIC PARAMETERS

erroneous results and the user should always double check the control data. The
second feature is often quite useful: mapgen’s mapdef(1l) program determines the
map’s central meridian automatically and appends a +lon_0 entry to the user’s
proj parameter list so that, if the user specifies +lon_0, it preceeds and is used in
lieu of mapdef ’s value.
The one remaining hyphen command line option, -c confile, permits entry of
all the + parameters in an an ascii file, confile, rather than on the command line.
When cartographic parameters are both on the command line and in a confile, the
contents of confile are processed after the command line arguments. For example,
a file proj.params may contain:

+proj=tmerc +ellps=GRS80
+x_0=500000 +y_0=-4000000
+lon_0=90w

and where usage would be:

proj -c proj.params input.data >output.data

Alternately,

proj -c proj.params +ellps=clrk66 input.data >output.data

where the +ellps option on the command line preceeds the option in the file
proj.params. The + before the parameters is not required in the confile, but is
recommended to avoid confusion.

Selection of Projection
As noted before, the selection of the cartographic projection by means of the
+proj=name parameter is required by proj. But because projections are con-
tinually being added and capablities of existing projections expanded (i.e. adding
the inverse operation) it is difficult to keep documentation up to date or properly
distributed to all users of a particular version of the program. Conversely, the
user may have documentation of a version not yet installed on a particular host
machine.
To solve partially the problem of current projection availability and status, the
user can get a list of projections from the available version of proj by executing:

$ proj +proj=list | more

An extract of the list that will appear on the user’s terminal is:

list of projections:

+proj=aea -> Albers Egual Area FIE

+proj=aeqd -> Azimuthal equidistant FI
+proj=aitoff -> Aitoff F
...
+proj=vandg -> Van der Grinten FI
+proj=wink1 -> Winkel I FI
+proj=wintri -> Winkel Tripel F

The last one to three uppercase characters indicate F for forward (always available),
I for inverse, and E for elliptical projection capability. This also provides a quick
remedy for a memory lapse regarding the name of a particular projection.
Specifying the Earth’s Figure 9

Specifying the Earth’s Figure

For many applications, especially in small scale mapping, the Earth can be con-
sidered a sphere and for appropriately scaled output the user need only specify
its radius. But due to the rotation on its axis, the Earth is slightly flattened and
it is better approximated by an ellipsoid of rotation about the polar axis, thus
ellipsoidal projections are used for accurate, large scale maps and plane coordinate
systems. To specify the Earth’s elliptical figure constants to be used by proj, two
parameters will be required. The first and required value +a=a where a is the
semimajor axis of the ellipse or equitorial radius and the second parameter can be
in any one of the following standard forms:
• semiminor axis or polar radius +b=b,
• flattening +f=f ,
• reciprocal flattening, +rf=1/f ,
• eccentricity +e=e, or
• eccentricity squared +es=e2 .
An example of specifying the Clark 1866 elliptical constants for the Polyconic
projection would be:
proj +proj=poly +a=6378206.4 +es=.006768658
Program proj has a convenient method of specifying standard ellisoidal con-
stants by means of the +ellps=ellipse parameter. A list of proj ellipse names cur-
rently available along with their exanded names and coefficients can be obtained
by executing
$ proj +ellps=list
which will output the following extract on the user’s terminal:
list of standard ellipsoid constants (+ellps= )
default selection:clrk66

MERIT: a=6378137.0 rf=298.257 "MERIT 1983"

GRS80: a=6378137.0 rf=298.257222 "GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)"
...
clrk66: a=6378206.4 b=6356583.8 "Clarke 1866"
...
WGS72: a=6378135.0 b=6356750.519915 "WGS 72"
sphere: a=6370997.0 es=0.0 "Sphere of 6370997 m"
When proj is executed without specification of elliptical constants (as per exam-
ples in the previous sections) a default ellipse, specified on the second line of the
+ellps=list option output, will be used. This default is determined at system
generation and Clarke’s 1866 constants are currently selected for use in North
American applications. grs80 will eventually become a default setting.
In the case of spherical projections or usage of the elliptical projections in
spherical form, specifying +a without one of the second ellipsoid parameters, such
as +rf or +es, forces a spherical transformation. In this case, +a determines the
Earth’s radius R. For example, to use the spherical form of the Polyconic projection
proj +proj=poly +a=1
will create forward projection cartesian output for a unit sphere.
The user is responsible for maintaining consistence of the units of a (R) (and,
if employed, b) with the expected cartesian forward projection output or cartesian
input for inverse projections. Some options to be discussed later must also be in
the same units.
10 PROJECTION DESCRIPTIONS

Common Parameters
Three parameters are common to all projections: the central meridian +lon_0=λ0 ,
and the cartesian offsets for the respective x and y axes, +x_0=x0 , +y_0=y0 (of-
ten refered to as false easting and northing). The central meridian is a simple
translation of the longitude axis which is normaly used to center a projection at
a particular longitude. Unless noted, the projection’s x axis origin is at λ0 . The
cartesian offsets are usually used in plane coordinate systems so that cartesian
coordinates will be positive:

x = x0 + x0
y = y 0 + y0

where (x0 , y 0 ) are the internal projection cartesian coordinates and (x, y) are carte-
sian input–output of proj. A fourth parameter, lat_0=φ0 , is used to designate a
central parallel and associated y axis origin for several projections. Unless the user
specifies a value for these parameters, they all assume a zero value.
There has been recent need to employ geocentric latitude, φg , rather than
geographic (or geodetic) latitude where the two latitudes are related by:

tan φg = (1 − e2 ) tan φ

Usage of the switch +geoc will cause proj to treat input or output latitude as geo-
centric. This parameter only applies to ellipsoidal projection usage and is ignored
for spherical usage (e2 = 0).
The normal geographic range for longitude is from 180◦ W to 180◦ E and sim-
ilarly proj reduces, both in forward and inverse mode, the internal value of ∆λ
to this range. Use of the option +over suppresses this range reduction but care
should be taken in applications. Generally, this option is employed in the construc-
tion of world maps.

Projection descriptions
The following description sections of proj’s projection functions are divided into
the catagories of cylindrical, pseudocylindrical, conic, azimuthal and miscellaneous.
Each projection is described as to its classification and subclassification, aliases,
available computational forms (i.e. elliptical, spherical, forward and/or inverse)
and summary of usage options. Most projections will also have an example plot of
the projection with parenthetical entries in the captions specifying options used to
generate the graphic.
In some cases the aliases apply to names given special forms of the projection.
For example, the Werner projection which is a special case of the Bonne projection
is listed as an alias of the Bonne projection. The usage description does not list
the options common to all projections discussed earlier such as the Earth’s figure
parameters and cartesian offsets.
 11

Cylindrical Projections
Cylindrical projections are based upon the various methods of projecting the Earth
upon a cylinder that is either tangent to the equator (normal or equatorial form),
a meridian (transverse) or obliquely aligned. Any of these classes are available in
both conformal and equal area form. These projections are best used in mapping
applications involving a zone near the line of tangency.

Mercator Projection

Figure 1: Mercator projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central meridian
90◦ W (+proj=merc +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Conformal cylindrical.

Aliases: Wright (rare).
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=merc +lat_ts=φs

Applications should be limited to equatorial regions, but it is frequently used for

navigational charts with latitude of true scale (φs ) specified within or near the
chart’s boundaries. Often inappropriately used for world maps since the regions
near the poles cannot be shown. When not specified, φs = 0◦ .
12 CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Transverse Mercator Projection

Figure 2: Transverse Mercator projection, Western hemisphere with shorelines and

15◦ graticule. Central meridian 90◦ W (+proj=tmerc +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Transverse cylindrical. Conformal.

Aliases: Gauss Conformal (ellipsoidal form), Gauss-Krüger (ellipsoidal form),
Transverse Cylindrical Orthomorphic
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=tmerc +lat 0=φ0 +k=k0

This is a common projection for large scale maps of predominantly north-south

extent. The parameter k0 is the scale factor at the central meridian which has a
value of 1. when +k is not specified.

Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Projection

Usage and options: +proj=utm +south +zone=zone

The utm projection is a special ellipsoidal form of the general Transverse Mercator
projection where λ − λ0 ≤ ±4◦ and 84◦ S ≤ φ ≤ 80◦ N. The central meridian, λ0 , is
constrained to 6◦ intervals starting at 3◦ and the projection automatically adjusts
to the proper value nearest the user’s entry of λ0 . An even multiple of 6◦ for λ0
should be avoided since the intended zone is indeterminent. One of the 60 zone
numbers may be specified in lieu of λ0 where +zone=1 specifies the region from
180◦ W to 174◦ W (λ0 = 177◦ W) and proceeds easterly until +zone=60 for the
region from 174◦ E to 180◦ E (λ0 = 177◦ E). If both +zone and +lon 0 are used,
+zone takes precedence.
For Southern hemisphere applications the option +south should be used which
adds a false northing of 10,000,000m. In all cases, a false easting of 500,000m is
used. Also see Universal Polar Stereographic (ups), p. 40.
 13

Oblique Mercator Projection

Classifications: Conformal cylindrical.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=omerc k=k0 +lat_0=φ0 +no_rot and either +lon_1=λ1
+lat_1=φ1 +lon_2=λ2 +lat_2=φ2 or +alpha=αc +lonc=λc

The Oblique Mercator (not illustrated) has two methods of specifying its control
information:
1. by means of two points (λ1 , φ1 ) and (λ2 , φ2 ) which will determine a great
circle, central line through each point or
2. by means of a point of origin at (λc , φ0 ) and an azimuth αc , measured clock-
wise from north, of the central line of the projection.
The presence of the +alpha option determines the method to be used. Cartesian
origin of the projection will coincide with φ0 and an internally determined value
of longitude for the first method or λc in the second method (+lon_0=λ0 is not
used and is ignored if specified). The cartesian coordinates are rotated by −αc
(determined internally for the first method) unless the +no_rot options is specified.
Scale factor at the central line can be modified by k0 which is 1. if not specified
with +k.
Initialization of the projection will fail if control parameters nearly define a
transverse or normal (equatorial) Mercator projection.

Central Cylindrical Projection

Figure 3: Central Cylindrical projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
meridian 90◦ W (+proj=cc +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Perspective, neither conformal nor equal area.

Aliases: Simple Perspective Cylindrical
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=cc
14 CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Transverse Central Cylindrical Projection

Figure 4: Transverse Central Cylindrical projection, Western hemisphere with

shorelines and 15◦ graticule. Central meridian 90◦ W (+proj=tcc +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Perspective cylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=tcc

Miller Projection

Figure 5: Miller projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central meridian
90◦ W (+proj=mill +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=mill
 15

Lambert Cylindrical Equal Area Projection

Figure 6: Lambert Cylindrical Equal Area projection, with shorelines and 30◦
graticule. Central meridian 90◦ W. Standard parallel 0◦ (+proj=cea +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Equal area.

Aliases: Cylindrical Equal Area, Behrmann, Gall Orthographic, Peters.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=cea +lat ts=φs

The latitude of true scale or standard parallels, φs , is assumed to be 0◦ if not spec-

ified by lat_ts (figure 6). Two alternate projections based upon the Cylindrical
Equal area are Behrmann (figure 7) where φs = 30 and Gall’s Orthographic (fig-
ure 8) where φs = 45. The latter is also an approximation of the Peters projection.

Figure 7: Behrmann Equal Area projection, with shorelines and 30◦ gratic-
ule. Central meridian 90◦ W. Standard parallels 30◦ (+proj=cea +lon 0=90w
+lat ts=30).
16 CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Figure 8: Gall’s Orthographic or approximate Peters projection, with shorelines

and 30◦ graticule. Central meridian 90◦ W. Standard parallels 45◦ (+proj=cea
+lon 0=90w +lat ts=45).

Gall (Stereographic) Projection

Figure 9: Gall (Stereographic) projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral meridian 90◦ W (+proj=gall +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Aliases: Gall Stereographic.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=gall
 17

Transverse Cylindrical Equal Area Projection

Figure 10: Transverse Cylindrical Equal Area projection, Western hemisphere with
shorelines and 15◦ graticule. Central meridian 90◦ W (+proj=tcea +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=tcea +lat 0= φ0 +k=k0

The parameter k0 is the scale factor at the central meridian which has a value of
1. when +k is not specified.
18 CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Equidistant Cylindrical Projection

Figure 11: Equidistant Cylindrical projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central meridian 90◦ W and φs = 45◦ (+proj=eqc +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Cylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Aliases: Plate Carée.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eqc +lat ts=φs

The latitude of true scale, φs , is assumed to be 0◦ if not specified by lat_ts

(figure 11). The Plate Carée designation only applies when φs = 0 (figure 12).

Figure 12: Plate Carée projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
meridian 90◦ W (+proj=eqc +lon 0=90w +lat ts=30).
 19

Cassini Projection

Figure 13: Cassini projection, Western hemisphere with shorelines and 15◦ gratic-
ule. Central meridian 90◦ W (+proj=cass +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Transverse cylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=cass +lat 0=φ0

Transverse form of the Plate Carée projection.

20 CYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS
 21

Pseudocylindrical Projections
The defining quality of the pseudocylindrical projections is that the parallels of
latitude are parallel, as with the normal cylindrical projections, but meridians,
other than the central meridian, always converge to the polar ends of the central
meridian. Typically, the convergence of the meridians is a smooth arc but some
novelty projections (Eckert I and II and Collignon) use straight lines. Several of
the pseudocylindical projections equal area but none are conformal.
The principle usage of these projections is for small scale, global maps, and
frequently in an interupted form.

Sinusoidal Projection

Figure 14: Sinusoidal projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=sinu +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Aliases: Sanson-Flamsteed, Mercator Equal-Area.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=sinu

Because this projection is useful for large scale applications it is frequently em-
ployed in transverse and oblique aspects.
22 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Mollweide Projection

Figure 15: Mollweide projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=moll +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Aliases: Homolographic, Homalographic, Babinet, Elliptical.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=moll

Robinson Projection

Figure 16: Robinson projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=robin +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous conformal.

Aliases: Orthophanic.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=robin
 23

Eckert I Projection

Figure 17: Eckert I projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=eck1 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck1

Eckert II Projection

Figure 18: Eckert II projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=eck2 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical, equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck2
24 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Eckert III Projection

Figure 19: Eckert III projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=eck3 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck3

Eckert IV Projection

Figure 20: Eckert IV projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=eck4 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical, equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck4
 25

Eckert V Projection

Figure 21: Eckert V projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=eck5 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck5

Eckert VI Projection

Figure 22: Eckert VI projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=eck6 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical, equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eck6
26 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Goode Homolosine Projection

Figure 23: Goode Homolosine projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=goode +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Aliases: Homolosine.
Available forms: Forward spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=goode

This projection is often used in interupted form and it is a composite projection

using Sinusoidal for |φ| < 40◦ 440 and Mollweide for |φ| ≥ 40◦ 440 .

Hatano Asymmetrical Equal-Area Projection

Figure 24: Hatano Asymmetrical Equal-Area projection, with shorelines and 30◦
graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=hataea +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical, equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=hataea
 27

Loximuthal Projection

Figure 25: Loximuthal projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=loxim +lon 0=90w +lat 1=40n).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=loxim +lat 1=φ1

Loxodromes (rhumb lines) from the central point, (λ0 , φ1 ), are true to scale from
this point and have proper azimuth at this point.

McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Parabolic Projection

Figure 26: McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Parabolic projection, with shorelines and

30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=mbtfpp +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=mbtfpp
28 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Quartic Projection

Figure 27: McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Quartic projection, with shorelines and

30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=mbtfpq +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Aliases: Flat-Polar Quartic.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=mbtfpq

McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Sinusoidal Projection

Figure 28: McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Sinusoidal projection, with shorelines and

30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=mbtfps +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=mbtfps
 29

Putnin.s̆ P02 Projection

Figure 29: Putnin.s̆ P02 projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=putp2 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=putp2

Putnin.s̆ P5 Projection

Figure 30: Putnin.s̆ P5 projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=putp5 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=putp5
30 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Quartic Authalic Projection

Figure 31: Quartic Authalic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=quau +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=quau

Winkel I Projection

Figure 32: Winkel I projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=wink1 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=wink1
 31

Boggs Eumorphic Projection

Figure 33: Boggs Eumorphic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=boggs +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical, equal area.

Available forms: Forward spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=boggs

Collignon Projection

Figure 34: Collignon projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=collg +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=collg
32 PSEUDOCYLINDRICAL PROJECTIONS

Denoyer Semi-Elliptical Projection

Figure 35: Denoyer Semi-Elliptical projection approximation, with shorelines and

30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=dense +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=dense

Craster Parabolic Projection

Figure 36: Craster Parabolic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=parab +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudocylindrical. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=parab
 33

Conic Projections
Basic conic projections involve the transformations to a cone either secant or tan-
gent to the Earth’s surface. Specification of the latitudes of secant intersection are
made with the lat 1=φ1 and lat 2=φ2 parameters (φ1 = φ2 for tangent form).
Cylindrical (φ1 = −φ2 ) or azimuthal (φ1 = φ2 = 90◦ ) limiting forms should not be
performed by these projections.

Lambert Conformal Conic Projection

Figure 37: Lambert Conformal Conic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central Meridian 90◦ W. and standard parallels at 20◦ N and 60◦ N (+proj=lcc
+lon 0=90w +lat 1=20n +lat 2=60n).

Classifications: Conformal conic.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=lcc +lat 1=φ1 +lat 2=φ2 +lat 0=φ0

Default values for φ1 and φ2 are respectively 33◦ N and 45◦ N (values normally
used for maps of the conterminous United States). Limiting forms are Polar Stere-
ographic and Mercator.
34 CONIC PROJECTIONS

Equidistant Conic Projection

Figure 38: Equidistant Conic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W. and standard parallels at 20◦ N and 60◦ N (+proj=eqdc
+lon 0=90w +lat 1=20n +lat 2=60n).

Classifications: Conic. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eqdc +lat 1=φ1 +lat 2=φ2 +lat 0=φ0
◦ ◦
Default values for φ1 and φ2 are respectively 29 12 N and 45 12 N. Limiting forms
are Polar Azimuthal Equidistant and Equirectangular.

Perspective Conic Projection

Figure 39: Perspective Conic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W and standard parallels at 20◦ N and 60◦ N (+proj=pconic
+lon 0=90w +lat 1=20n +lat 2=60n).

Classifications: Conic. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=pconic +lat 1=φ1 +lat 2=φ2
Default values for φ1 and φ2 are respectively 33◦ N and 45◦ N Limiting forms are
Polar Gnomonic and Central Cylindrical.
 35

Albers Equal Area Projection

Figure 40: Albers equal area projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W. and standard parallels at 20◦ N and 60◦ N (+proj=aea
+lon 0=90w +lat 1=20n +lat 2=60n).

Classifications: Conic. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=aea +lat 0=φ0 +lat 1=φ1 +lat 2=φ2
◦ ◦
Default values for φ1 and φ2 are respectively 29 21 N and 45 12 N (values normally
used for maps of the conterminous United States).

Lambert Equal Area Projection

Figure 41: Lambert Equal Area Projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central Meridian 90◦ W and standard parallel at 0◦ (+proj=leac +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Conic. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=leac +lat 1=φ1 +lat 0=φ0 +south

Default value for φ1 is 0◦ . Select parameter +south for south polar aspect. Limiting
form is Polar Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area (φ1 = ±90◦ ).
36 CONIC PROJECTIONS

Bipolar Oblique Conic Conformal Projection

Classifications: Conformal conic.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=bipc +ns

Not illustrated. For non-skewed cartesian coordinates select option +ns.

Polyconic (American) Projection

Figure 42: Polyconic (American) projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=poly +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=poly +lat 0=φ0

Inverse projection of cartesian coordinates representing λ greater than 90◦ from λ0

cannot be performed.
 37

Rectangular Polyconic Projection

Figure 43: Rectangular Polyconic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=rpoly +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Neither conformal nor equal area.

Aliases: War Office (British)
Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=rpoly +lat ts=φs

A latitude of true scale may be specified with lat ts=φs as shown in figure 44 If
not specified, φs = 0 is assumed as shown in figure 43.

Figure 44: Rectangular Polyconic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule.
Central Meridian 90◦ W. North and south latitudes of 45◦ are at true scale.
(+proj=rpoly +lon 0=90w +lat ts=45).
38 CONIC PROJECTIONS

Bonne Projection

Figure 45: Bonne projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=bonne +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Pseudoconic. Equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=bonne +lat 1=φ1

Default value for φ1 is 40◦ N. The Werner projection (figure 46) is a variant of the
Bonne where φ1 = ±90◦ . Parameter +lat 0 is not employed in this projection and
the cartesian origin is at λ0 and φ1 .

Figure 46: Werner projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W (+proj=bonne +lon 0=90w +lat 1=90n).
 39

Azimuthal Projections
Azimuthal projections are based upon projections to a plane tangent to the Earth’s
surface at a point specified by lon 0=λ0 and lat 0=φ0 . When φ is ±90◦ or φ is
0◦ the projections are respectively termed polar and equatorial, otherwise they are
termed oblique. In all cases, the x–y origin coincides with λ0 –φ0 .

Stereographic Projection

Figure 47: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the
Stereographic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W. (+proj=stere +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Conformal.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical and elliptical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=stere +lat 0=φ0 +k=k0 +lat ts= φ0

The parameter k0 is the scaling factor at the tangency point of the projection
(λ0 , φ0 ) and is 1. if +k is not specified. For the polar aspects, the latitude of true
scale, φs , may be employed in lieu of k0 when φs 6= ±90◦ (the default value).
40 AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS

Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) Projection

Usage and options: +proj=ups +south

The ups projection is a special case polar aspect of the Stereographic projection
designed to cover the regions where φ ≥ 84◦ N or φ ≤ 80◦ S. The internal Stereo-
graphic parameters are fixed at k0 = 0.994, λ0 = 0◦ , x0 = y0 = 2, 000, 000m, and
φ0 is either 90◦ N when +south is not specified or 90◦ S when +south is specified.
Elliptical parameters must be used (either proj default or entered as option). Also
see the Universal Transverse Mercator (utm) projection (p. 12).

Gnomonic Projection

Figure 48: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the
Gnomonic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W.
(+proj=gnom +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Neither confomal nor equal area.

Aliases: Gnomic, Central.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=gnom
 41

Orthographic Projection

Figure 49: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the Or-
thographic projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W.
(+proj=ortho +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Neither confomal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=ortho
42 AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS

Airy Projection

Figure 50: Polar (+lat 0=90), oblique (+lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the
Airy projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W and
φb = 90◦ . (+proj=airy +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Neither confomal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=airy +lat_b=φb +no_cut

The Airy projection is an azimuthal minimum error projection for the region within
the small or great circle defined by an angular distance, φb , from the tangency point
of the plane (λ0 , φ0 ). The default value for φb is 90◦ that is suitable for hemi-
spherical maps. Extent of projection is limited to the hemisphere unless +no cut
is specified.
 43

Near-Sided Perspective Projection

Figure 51: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the
Near-Sided Perspective projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W. (+proj=nsper +lon 0=90w +a=1 +h=8)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Neither confomal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=nsper +h=h

Parameter h is the height of the view point above the Earth and must be in the
same units as a.
44 AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS

Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area Projection

Figure 52: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the
Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W. (+proj=laea +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Equal area.

Aliases: Lorgna, Zenithal Equal-Area, Zenithal Equivalent.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=laea
 45

Azimuthal Equidistant Projection

Figure 53: Polar (lat 0=90), oblique (lat 0=45) and equatorial aspects of the Az-
imuthal Equidistant projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W. (+proj=aeqd +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Azimuthal. Neither confomal nor equal area.

Aliases: Postel, Zenithal Equidistant.
Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=aeqd
46 AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS

Hammer Projection

Figure 54: Hammer projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W. (+proj=hammer +lon 0=90w)

Figure 55: Eckert-Greifendorff modified Hammer projection, with shorelines and

30◦ graticule. Central Meridian 90◦ W. (+proj=hammer +lon 0=90w +W=.25)

Classifications: Modified azimuthal, equal area.

Aliases: Hammer-Aitoff (also erroneously called Aitoff).
Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=hammer [ +W=n ]

The real value n assigned to the +W option determines the normal Hammer pro-
jection, n = 0.5 or +W option omitted, shown in figure 54, the Eckert-Greifendorff,
n = 0.25, projection shown in figure 55. A value of n = 0 is a terminal error.
 47

Wagner VII Projection

Figure 56: Wagner VII projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W. (+proj=wag7 +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Modified azimuthal. Equal area.

Aliases: Hammer-Wagner.
Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=wag7

Aitoff Projection

Figure 57: Aitoff projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Meridian
90◦ W. (+proj=aitoff +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Modified azimuthal. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=aitoff
48 AZIMUTHAL PROJECTIONS

Winkel Tripel Projection

Figure 58: Winkel Tripel projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W. (+proj=wintri +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Modified azimuthal. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=wintri
 49

Miscellaneous Projections
The miscellaneous classification is employed for projections not mathematically de-
veloped as projections onto a conic surface and which are primarily used for global
or hemispherical small scale maps. Except for certain cases with the Lagrange
projection, the cartesian origin coincides with λ0 and φ = 0◦ , and +lat 0 is not
used with any of the miscellaneous projections.

August Epicycloidal Projection

Figure 59: August Epicycloidal projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=august +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous conformal.

Aliases: August.
Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=august
50 MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS

Bacon Globular Projection

Figure 60: Bacon Globular projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=bacon +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=bacon

Nicolosi Globular Projection

Figure 61: Nicolosi Globular projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=nicol +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=nicol
 51

Fournier Globular I Projection

Figure 62: Fournier Globular I projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=fourn +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=fourn

Apian Globular I Projection

Figure 63: Apian Globular I projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=apian +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=apian
52 MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS

Eisenlohr Projection

Figure 64: Eisenlohr projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W (+proj=eisen +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Conformal.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=eisen

Ortelius Oval Projection

Figure 65: Ortelius Oval projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=ortel +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=ortel
 53

Van der Grinten (I) Projection

Figure 66: Van der Grinten I projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=vandg +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward and inverse, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=vandg

Van der Grinten II Projection

Figure 67: Van der Grinten II projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central
Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=vandg2 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=vandg2
54 MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS

Van der Grinten III Projection

Figure 68: Van der Grinten III projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=vandg3 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=vandg3

Van der Grinten IV Projection

Figure 69: Van der Grinten IV projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Cen-
tral Meridian 90◦ W (+proj=vandg4 +lon 0=90w).

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Neither conformal nor equal area.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=vandg4
 55

Lagrange Projection

Figure 70: Lagrange projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W. (+proj=lagrng +lon 0=90w)

Classifications: Miscellaneous. Conformal.

Available forms: Forward, spherical projection.
Usage and options: +proj=lagrng +W=r +lat 1=φ1

The +W option provides for specifying the ratio r = λ0 /180◦ that defines a circular
meridian passing through the poles and λ0 ± λ0 . Figure 70 shows the default value
of r = 2, and figures 71 and 72 show respective values of r = 1 and r = 1.4.
Option +lat 1=φ1 specifies a parallel that will be a straight line (φ1 = 0 when not
specified) as well as the origin of the y axis. Figure 73 is an example for φ1 = 30◦ S.

Figure 71: Lagrange projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W. (+proj=lagrng +lon 0=90w +W=1)
56 MISCELLANEOUS PROJECTIONS

Figure 72: Lagrange projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W. (+proj=lagrng +lon 0=90w +W=1.4)

Figure 73: Lagrange projection, with shorelines and 30◦ graticule. Central Merid-
ian 90◦ W. (+proj=lagrng +lon 0=90w +lat 1=30s)
 57

U.S. State Plane Coordinate Systems (SPCS)

Since 1935 each of the United States have defined by State legislative action one
or more spcs zones in terms of datum, geographical extent and cartographic pro-
jection parameters relating geographic coordinates to the cartesian coordinates
used in land surveying. Mitchell and Simmons (1945, p. 45–47) and Snyder (1988,
p. 52–56) provide tables of the cartographic parameters for each of these zones.
The North American Datum of 1927 (nad27) and Clarke 1866 ellipsoid are used
for spcs27 and cartesian units are in “U.S. surveyor feet” with a metric conversion
of 1 m ≡ 39.37 in. (versus the International conversion of 1 in. ≡ 2.54 cm).
Subsequent to the use of modern surveying equipment and satellite data, im-
proved positioning information has resulted in establishing a new datum, nad83,
spcs83 and the grs80 ellipsoid (Stem, 1989). Several States have also altered their
zones and units of the cartesian coordinate system. It is unclear as to the status of
nad83 in each States because of the current transitional period (see Stem, 1989,
p. 9) and users should check with local State authorities as to the exact system in
current usage.

SPCS Conversion Procedures

Procedures are available to perform forward, for27 or for83, or inverse, inv27 or
inv83, conversions for respective spcs27 or spcs83. If any of the procedures are
executed without run-line arguments the following usage line will be printed:

usage: xxxxx state_code [ -M ] [ proj_parameters ] [ file ... ]

where xxxxx is the procedure name. The state_code is a National Geodetic Survey
reference number for each of the spcs zones. If the user does not know the code
number, an anotated list can be obtained by executing nad27 or nad83 followed
by the state’s name. For example, to obtain Colorado’s spcs27 zone codes:

$ nad27 colo

and the following results will appear:

# 501:colorado north datum:NAD27

# 502:colorado central datum:NAD27
# 503:colorado south datum:NAD27

Colorado’s respective North, Central and South zone codes are 501, 502 and 503.
A complete list is obtained by executing nad27 or nad83 without any run-line
argument.
The -M options allows cartesian coordinates to be in meters rather than the
default surveyor’s feet and the proj_parameters provides for entering any of pro-
gram proj’s hyphen type runline parameters. To select forward transformation to
meters with 4 fractional digits then:

for27 502 -M -f ’%.4f’ my.data | ...

As an example, using real numbers, the spcs27 cartesian coordinates for two
sites near Boston are to be obtained from their latitude-longitude locations in a
file Boston.harbor:

42d19’40.180"N 70d53’26.214"W # Boston Lighthouse

42d30’19.187"N 70d50’03.052"W # Marblehead Lighthouse

Execution of nad27 determines the zone number:

58 U.S. STATE PLANE COORDINATE SYSTEMS (SPCS)

$ nad27 mass
# 2001:massachusetts mainland datum:NAD27
# 2002:massachusetts island datum:NAD27
$ ...
And the following determine the spcs27 coordinates in feet:
$ for27 2001 -r -f ’%.3f’ Boston.harbor
764787.570 484445.491 # Boston Lighthouse
779542.978 549243.661 # Marblehead Lighthouse
$ ...

Caveats
A few elements related to spcs should be emphasized:
• The user must be warned that spcs coordinates in one datum cannot be
directly converted to the alternate datum. For example:

inv27 2001 -o my.data.27 | for83 2001 -i >my.data.83

is executionally correct, but it will not produce the correct result!

The change in the datum represents shifts in the coordinates that are not
compensated for by proj conversions.
• The tables employed by the software discussed in this appendix were adapted
from tabular material in the gctp ii distribution tape (Elassal, 1987).
• The author has encountered tabulations of geographic-spcs values which do
not exactly agree with proj conversions (differences are in the centimeter
range and limited to zones employing the Transverse Mercator projection).
But exhaustive testing and improvement of proj’s accuracy and the fact that
gctp ii agrees with proj to within 10−3 m or 3 × 10−3 feet suggests that
either such tabulations were performed with insufficient precision or alternate
algorithms were employed.
 59

Appendix 1—Summary of basic commands

This is a summary of the material contained in the man(1) file available from host
system as an on-line file or as hard copy from the system administrator.
The following run line control parameters can appear in any order:
-b — Special option for binary coordinate data input and output through stan-
dard input and standard output. Data is assumed to be in system type double
floating point words. This option is useful when proj is a son process and
allows bypassing formatting operations.
-i — Selects binary input only (see -b option).
-o — Selects binary output only (see -b option).
-ta — A specifies a character employed as the first character to denote a control
line to be passed through without processing. This option applicable to ascii
input only. (# is the default value).
-e string — String is an arbitrary string to be output if an error is detected
during data transformations. The default value is the string: *\t*. Note
that if the options -b, -i or -o are employed, an error is returned as a huge
value for both return values.
-c file — File is the source file name of additional + option control data for the
projection procedures.
-r — This options reverses the order of the expected input from longitude-
latitude or x-y to latitude-longitude or y-x.
-s — This options reverses the order of the output from x–y or longitude-latitude
to y–x or latitude-longitude.
-m mult — The cartesian data may be scaled by the mult parameter. When
processing data in a forward projection mode the cartesian output values are
multiplied by mult otherwise the input cartesian values are divided by mult
before inverse projection. If the first two characters of mult are 1/ or 1: then
the reciprocal value of mult is employed.
-f format — Format is a printf (3) format string to control the form of the output
values. For inverse projections, the output will be in degrees when this option
is employed. If a format is specified for inverse projection the output data
will be in decimal degrees. The default format is %.2f for forward projection
and dms for inverse.
-[w|W]n — N is the number of significant fractional digits to employ for sec-
onds output (when the option is not specified, -w3 is assumed). When -W is
employed the fields will be constant width with leading zeroes.
The +args runline arguments are associated with cartographic parameters and
usage varies with projection selected and only two are discussed here They may be
either entered on the run line where they must be preceeded by the + symbol or
specified in the file reference by the -c option where the + prefix is optional. The
options are processed in left to right order from the run line followed by processing
the entries in the -c file. Reentry of an option is ignored with the first occurance
assumed to be the desired value.
+proj=name — is always required for selection of the transformation func-
tion and where name is an acronym for the desired projection. A list
of currently available projections and their names can be obtained by:
proj +proj=list | more.
60 APPENDIX 1—SUMMARY OF BASIC COMMANDS

+ellps=acronym — The +ellps option allows selection of standard, predefined

ellipsoid figures. For a list of currently available ellipsoid figures and their
acronyms execute: proj +ellps=list | more.
+inv — The presence of this option selects the inverse projection mode of oper-
ation. It is equivalent to executing program invproj.
+geoc — Geographic coordinates are to be treated as geocentric.
+over — Inhibit reduction of longitude range to within ±180◦ of the central
meridian.
 61

References
Elassal, A.A., 1987, General Cartographic Transformation Package (gctp), Ver-
sion II: noaa Technical Report nos 124 cgs 9, 24 p.
Evenden, G.I., 1983, Forward and inverse cartographic projection procedures: U.S.
Geological Survey Open-File Report 83-623, 85 p.
, Botbol, J.M., 1985, User’s manual for mapgen (unix version): a
method to transform digital cartographic data to a map: U.S. Geological
Survey Open-File Report 85-706, 134 p.
Kernighan, B.W., Ritchie, D.M., 1978, The C Programming Language: Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall
Mitchell, H.C., Simmons, L.G., 1945, The State Coordinate Systems (A Manual
for Surveyors): noaa Special Publication No. 235, reprinted 1987, 62 p.
Snyder, J.P., 1987, Map projections—A working manual: U.S. Geological Survey
Professional Paper 1395, 383 p.
,Voxland, R.M., 1989, An album of map projections: U.S. Geological
Survey Professional Paper 1453, 249 p.
Stem, J.E., 1989, State Plane Coordinate System of 1983: noaa Manual nos ngs
5, 119 p.
62 REFERENCES
Index
- placement of processing stdin, 3 Airy, 42
Aitoff, 47
Azimuthal Projections, 39–49 Albers Equal Area, 35
Apian Globular I, 51
basic program usage, 2 August Epicycloidal, 49
binary I/O, 7 Azimuthal Equidistant, 45
Babinet, 22
cartesian scaling, 7
Bacon Globular, 50
cartographic parameters, 7
Behrmann, 15
+a, 9
Bipolar Oblique Conic Confor-
+e, 9
mal, 36
+ellps, 8
Boggs Eumorphic, 31
+es, 9
Bonne, 38
+f, 9
Cassini, 19
+geoc, 10
Central, 40
+inv, 4
Central Cylindrical, 13
+lat 0, 10
Collignon, 31
+lon 0, 10
Craster Parabolic, 32
+over, 10
Cylindrical Equal Area, 15
+proj, 3, 8
Denoyer Semi-Elliptical, 32
+rf, 9
+x 0, 10 Eckert I, 23
+y 0, 10 Eckert II, 23
effect of order, 8 Eckert III, 24
comments in data input, 4 Eckert IV, 24
Conic Projections, 33–39 Eckert V, 25
controlling output precision Eckert VI, 25
λ − φ, 6 Eckert-Greifendorff, 46
x − y, 5 Eisenlohr, 52
cup character, 2 Elliptical, 22
Cylindrical Projections, 11–19 Equidistant Conic, 34
Equidistant Cylindrical, 18
data input, 3 Flat-Polar Quartic, 28
data output, 5 Fournier Globular I, 51
dms degree, minute, second format, 3 Gall (Stereographic), 16
Gall Orthographic, 15
elliptical figure, 9 Gauss Conformal, 12
elliptical listing, 9 Gauss-Krüger, 12
Gnomic, 40
history of proj, 1 Gnomonic, 40
Goode Homolosine, 26
input data format, 3 Hammer, 46
inverse projection Hammer-Aitoff, 46
by executing invproj, 4 Hammer-Wagner, 47
Hatano Asymmetrical Equal-
longitude over-range, 10
Area, 26
mapgen, 2 Homalographic, 22
Miscellaneous Projections, 49–56 Homolographic, 22
Homolosine, 26
order of processing input files, 3 Lagrange, 55
Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area,
projection list, 8 44
Projections Lambert Conformal Conic, 33

63
64 INDEX

Lambert Cylindrical Equal Area, Wright, 11

15 Zenithal Equal-Area, 44
Lambert Equal Area, 35 Zenithal Equidistant, 45
Lorgna, 44 Zenithal Equivalent, 44
Loximuthal, 27 Pseudo Cylindrical Projections, 21–
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar 33
Parabolic, 27
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar release
Quartic, 28 determination, 2
McBryde-Thomas Flat-Polar Si- previous to release 3, 2
nusoidal, 28 version number, 2
Mercator, 11 reversing input data order, -r, 4
Mercator Equal-Area, 21 reversing order of output, 6
Mollweide, 22 run line parameters
Near-Sided Perspective, 43 -b both input and output binary,
Nicolosi Globular, 50 59
Oblique Mercator, 13 -c specify control file, 8, 59
Ortelius Oval, 52 -e error output string, 6
Orthographic, 41 -f output format, 5, 59
Orthophanic, 22 -i input binary, 7, 59
Perspective Conic, 34 -m specify cartesian scaling, 7, 59
Peters, 15 -o output binary, 7, 59
Plate Carée, 18 -r revese order of input, 4, 59
Polyconic (American), 36 -s revese order of output, 6, 59
Postel, 45 -t select comment tag character,
Putnin.s̆ P02 , 29 5, 59
Putnin.s̆ P5 , 29 -w specify dms significant fig-
Quartic Authalic, 30 ures, 6, 59
Rectangular Polyconic, 37
selection of projection, 8
Robinson, 22
Snyder, J.P., 1
Sanson-Flamsteed, 21
State Plane Coordinate Systems
Simple Perspective Cylindrical,
(SPCS), 57
13
stdin, 3
Sinusoidal, 21
stdout, 3
Stereographic, 39
Transverse Central Cylindrical, typological conventions, 2
14
Transverse Cylindrical Equal untransformable data, 6
Area, 17
Transverse Cylindrical Ortho- Voxland, P.M., 1
morphic, 12
Transverse Mercator, 12 white space emphasis, 2
Universal Polar Stereographic
(UPS), 40
Universal Transverse Mercator
(utm), 12
Van der Grinten (I), 53
Van der Grinten II, 53
Van der Grinten III, 54
Van der Grinten IV, 54
Wagner VII, 47
War Office, 37
Werner, 38
Winkel I, 30
Winkel Tripel, 48