topic Re: How to Project shapefile using GIS in Developers Questions

How to Project shapefile using GIS

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 00:55:51 GMT

Hello everybody,

I have four US metropolitan cities ( Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas , Detroit) which are in Geographic Coordinate System: GCS_North_American_1983. I want to project them using UTM. Appreciate if somebody walk me through the process in GIS and let me know about the best projection zones I should use for these metro cities.

Thanks a lot!

Re: How to Project shapefile using GIS

DanPatterson_Retired — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 01:12:50 GMT

UTM zone maps are many and the Project tools will do it

Re: How to Project shapefile using GIS

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 01:28:20 GMT

Hi Dan..

Thanks a lot for your input, but UTM zone maps doesn't tell me the best UTM zones for these cities. It gives you general ideas about UTM. For example it doesn't tell if I should use NAD83 / UTM zone 16N or any other zones. Because there are many UTM zones..

Re: How to Project shapefile using GIS

DanPatterson_Retired — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 01:32:16 GMT

Since the cities are in North America, NAD 83 would suffice as would WGS84 if you don't want to do a datum transform. Since you are working at a city scale, the difference will not be relevant. And there is a good chance that the whole city falls within one utm zone. Just match your city to its location on a utm map. If they don't fall in the same utm zone, and you want to map them together, the US, often uses an Albers projections in that case.

Re: How to Project shapefile using GIS

ABDALLAMOHAMED — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 01:35:52 GMT

Okay, let me try NAD83, and see the output maps..

Thanks a lot

Best wishes!

ABDALLA