What are coordinate systems and map projections?

Geomarketing relies on coordinate systems and map projections to work with geographic data effectively. Coordinate systems pinpoint locations, while map projections transform the Earth's surface onto maps. These tools are fundamental for geomarketers to analyze and target specific geographic regions. This introduction provides an overview of their importance in geomarketing.

What are coordinate systems?

Coordinate Systems are methods used to represent locations on the Earth's surface. They use a set of numbers (coordinates) to pinpoint a place's position. Commonly used coordinate systems include latitude and longitude and the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system.

What is a map projection?

Maps are a flat visualization of a round globe. The conversion of a globe to a map view sounds quite simple, but there is actually a quite difficult process behind this easy process that converts data on a spherical globe to a format, that can be used with the flat, plane maps of the Spotzi Mapbuilder. This conversion is called a projection.

Wikipedia gives the following explanation of Map Projections: “Commonly, a map projection is a systematic transformation of the latitudes and longitudes of locations on the surface of a sphere or an ellipsoid into locations on a plane.”

There are lots of different projections available. In our Spotzi Geomarketing Platform, we use a single projection called WGS 1984 Web Mercator.

What projections (coordinate systems) does Spotzi support?

When importing a dataset, it is also important to upload a dataset with a map projection (or: coordinate system) that Spotzi supports. The coordinate systems that are officially supported *:

• WGS84 (EPSG 4326)
• Amersfoort RD New (EPSG 28992)

* These are just the coordinate systems that are officially supported, but there are a lot of other coordinate systems that should work too. Do you happen to have a coordinate system that also works with our data mapping software? Please contact us and let us know.

Do you have geodata in another map projection that you want to import into Spotzi?

Please contact us and our data team will help you to convert your data to the right map projection.