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Field note · Coordinates & projections

Southern UTM without the 10,000,000 m false northing gives negative y

Quick answer

EPSG:32756 carries a false northing of 10000000 m so the equator maps to y=10000000. A +proj=utm +zone=56 definition without +south treats Sydney as northern and returns y=-3748000, exactly 10 million metres away.

Last verified 2026-11-03 · Multiple versions · Cite this page
Applies to: proj4js 2.11.x · GeoServer 2.23 · PostGIS 3.4
Symptom
Checklist
  1. Compare the sign of the latitude with the EPSG hemisphere suffix; southern latitudes need 327xx.
  2. Check whether y is negative; valid UTM y lies between 0 and 10000000.
  3. Inspect a custom PROJ string for a missing +south.
  4. Project a north-hemisphere point at the same longitude as a control; if only the southern one fails, it is the hemisphere parameter.
  5. Reproject back to 4326 and confirm the round trip returns 151.2093, -33.8688.
Fix

Use EPSG:327xx for the southern hemisphere and add +south to any custom definition, e.g. +proj=utm +zone=56 +south +datum=WGS84 +units=m; also widen the database column to a signed type.

Code
const bad = '+proj=utm +zone=56 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs';
proj4.defs('UTM56_BAD', bad);
proj4('EPSG:4326', 'UTM56_BAD', [151.2093, -33.8688]);
// => [334300, -3748000]
proj4('EPSG:4326', 'EPSG:32756', [151.2093, -33.8688]);
// => [334300, 6252000]
proj4.defs('EPSG:32756',
  '+proj=utm +zone=56 +south +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs');

-- 字段至少要容纳 0~10000000 的 y
ALTER TABLE survey_pt
  ALTER COLUMN y TYPE numeric(12,3);   -- 原来 numeric(9,2) 最大 9999999.99
Watch out
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English edition written for Atlaslog from the original Chinese field note. Code is unchanged and runs as-is.
Cite this page

Atlaslog (2026). Southern UTM without the 10,000,000 m false northing gives negative y. https://www.jingweizhi.com/en/cookbook/utm-south-false-northing.html (accessed 2026-11-03).