World Geographic Reference System (WGRS)

The World Geographic Reference system (WGRS) is based on geodetic latitude and longitude coordinates, and uses an alpha-numeric string to represent points on the grid in the following display format (where N represents a numeral and A represents a letter):

 AAAANNNNNNNNNN

The first two letters denote the major grid division, which corresponds to a unique 15-degree quadrangle on the surface of the earth. The first letter, representing the division’s longitudinal location, ranges from A to Z. The second letter, representing the division’s latitudinal location, ranges from A to M. Both ranges exclude letters O and I.  

The second two letters denote the minor grid division, which identifies a 1-degree quadrangle within the major division’s quadrangle. The first letter represents longitudinal location and the second the latitudinal location. Both letters range from A to Q, excluding O and I.

The ten numerals represent two offset values, in decimal minutes, within the minor division's quadrangle from the quadrangle’s southwest corner. The first five numerals represent the easting offset and the second five represent the northing offset.  There are two values to represent minutes from the quadrangle corner, and three values to represent fractions of minutes.  *Note:  values in the negative direction (West and South values) will appear as a difference from the corner.  In the case of a coordinate such as W 122 15 00 ,  N 45 40 000 the value will appear as: DKNA4500040000

PRECISION NOTE:WGRS coordinates are only accurate to within 0.75 meters, due to the rigid formatting of the strings and the precision used by the format. Converting to