EPSG / CRS Code Reference for Nepal (QGIS & ArcGIS)

There is no single "Nepal coordinate system." Which CRS (Coordinate Reference System) you need depends entirely on the data you are handling. GPS points, web maps, satellite imagery and most open datasets are stored in WGS 84 geographic coordinates, whose EPSG code is 4326 (degrees of latitude and longitude). For measuring distances and areas in metres, you switch to a projected CRS: either the two standard UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) zones that cover Nepal, or the government's own MUTM (Modified Universal Transverse Mercator) grid.

The Survey Department of Nepal, the national mapping authority, publishes its official topographic sheets on the MUTM projection referenced to the Nepal 1981 (Nagarkot) datum. This is the coordinate system printed on the 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 topo maps and used across most land-record and cadastral products. The problem for GIS users is that MUTM has never been registered in the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset, so QGIS and ArcGIS cannot offer it in the CRS picker. You must define it yourself by pasting a proj4 or WKT string, which is exactly what this page provides.

The practical rule: keep original GPS or web data in EPSG:4326, reproject to UTM 44N/45N (EPSG:32644/32645) when you want a globally consistent metric grid on the modern WGS 84 datum, and use MUTM only when you must line up precisely with official Nepali survey sheets. Mixing the two families without a datum shift can introduce errors of hundreds of metres, because MUTM sits on the older Everest 1830 ellipsoid rather than WGS 84.

Below is the fastest reference. Each entry gives the code, the human-readable name, and where in Nepal it applies. For UTM the dividing meridian is 84 degrees East, which runs roughly north-south through the middle of the country near Chitwan; districts west of that line fall in zone 44N and districts east of it fall in zone 45N. Because the MUTM zones are not in EPSG, they are marked as custom definitions that you paste manually.

If you only remember three numbers, remember 4326 for lat/long, 32644 for western Nepal in metres, and 32645 for eastern Nepal in metres. Everything else in this table is for aligning with official survey products or for the geographic (unprojected) Nepal 1981 datum.

These are the exact definition strings. Copy the one you need and paste it wherever your software accepts a proj4 or PROJ string (in QGIS, this is the "Custom" CRS tab; in ArcGIS you build the equivalent projected coordinate system, described further down). The standard WGS 84 systems are included for completeness even though your software already has them.

For the MUTM zones, the only differences between the three strings are the central meridian (+lon_0) and, by convention, the zone number. The scale factor +k=0.9999 (not the UTM value of 0.9996), the false easting +x_0=500000, the false northing +y_0=0, and the Everest 1830 ellipsoid alias +ellps=evrst30 are identical across all three zones. Note that MUTM is defined on the local datum, so a proper +towgs84 shift is required if you later transform to WGS 84.

QGIS ships with the full EPSG database, so WGS 84 and both UTM zones are one click away in the CRS selector. MUTM is not, so you register it once as a custom CRS and then reuse it. The steps below apply to QGIS 3.x on any operating system.

After you save the custom CRS, it appears under "User-defined coordinate systems" in every CRS picker (project properties, layer save dialogs, and the reproject tool). Always confirm the correct MUTM zone for your project area, because a point placed in the wrong central meridian will be off by tens of kilometres in easting.

ArcGIS handles the standard systems natively: search for 4326, 32644 or 32645 in the Coordinate System dialog and they load instantly under Projected or Geographic Coordinate Systems. For MUTM there is no built-in entry, so you create a custom Projected Coordinate System that mirrors the proj4 parameters exactly. Esri does ship some related definitions (for example "Nepal Nagarkot TM" variants), but confirm the parameters match the Survey Department values before trusting them.

In ArcGIS Pro, open the map or dataset properties, go to the Coordinate Systems tab, and choose to add a new Projected Coordinate System. Select Transverse Mercator as the projection, then enter the parameters below. For the geographic coordinate system underneath it, base it on the Everest 1830 (1937 Adjustment) ellipsoid, which is the exact ellipsoid used by Nepal's MUTM and Nepal 1981 datum.

Save the definition as a .prj file so you can reuse it and share it with colleagues. When you later transform MUTM data to WGS 84, apply a datum transformation using the Nepal 1981 to WGS 84 parameters (EPSG:6208) rather than assuming the datums are identical.

MUTM is a Nepal-specific tweak of the global UTM system, designed to reduce scale distortion across the country's narrow east-west extent and to reference the older, locally best-fitting Everest 1830 ellipsoid. The most consequential difference is the scale factor at the central meridian: standard UTM uses 0.9996, while MUTM uses 0.9999. That change flattens the distortion pattern so that map scale stays closer to true over the width of each Nepali zone, at the cost of not matching the international UTM grid.

The second difference is the ellipsoid and datum. Global UTM (EPSG:32644/32645) sits on WGS 84, the modern satellite-derived ellipsoid. MUTM sits on Everest 1830 (1937 Adjustment) via the Nepal 1981 (Nagarkot) datum, an ellipsoid with semi-major axis a = 6,377,276.345 metres and inverse flattening 1/f = 300.8017. In PROJ this ellipsoid is invoked with the alias +ellps=evrst30. Because the two families use different ellipsoids and datum origins, coordinates are not interchangeable without a datum shift.

The false easting of 500,000 metres (shared with UTM) keeps all eastings positive within a zone, placing the central meridian at x = 500000. The false northing is 0 because Nepal lies entirely in the northern hemisphere. Latitude of origin is the equator (0 degrees). Understanding these five parameters, central meridian, scale factor, false easting, false northing, and latitude of origin, is enough to reconstruct any MUTM definition from scratch if you ever lose the string.

The single biggest error is treating MUTM coordinates as if they were UTM on WGS 84. Overlaying an official Survey Department layer (MUTM/Everest 1830) on an OpenStreetMap or GPS layer (WGS 84) without a datum transformation typically produces a horizontal offset of several hundred metres. Always tag each dataset with the correct CRS first, then let the GIS reproject with a proper transformation rather than force-fitting layers by eye.

The second common mistake is picking the wrong zone. Because the MUTM strings differ only by +lon_0, it is easy to paste zone 84 when your data is really in zone 87, which shifts everything by roughly 300 kilometres in easting. Cross-check against a known landmark or the district's approximate longitude before committing. Kathmandu, for instance, sits near 85.3E and is mapped in MUTM zone 84 (central meridian 84E).

Finally, when converting MUTM to WGS 84, use the published Nepal 1981 to WGS 84 shift. The EPSG-registered three-parameter transformation (EPSG:6208) uses roughly +293.17, +726.18, +245.36 metres and yields sub-metre-class accuracy for most mapping work. Omitting this +towgs84 shift is the hidden cause of most "my map is off by a bit" complaints in Nepali GIS projects.