EPSG systems

EPSG:3411 NSIDC Sea Ice Polar Stereographic North

Projected system (Polar Stereographic (variant B)) in use: World - N hemisphere - north of 60°N. The full definition below, and conversion in one click.

EPSG publishes no simple transformation to WGS 84 for this datum: conversion works on the ellipsoid alone and can be off by tens of metres.

System record
CodeEPSG:3411
NameNSIDC Sea Ice Polar Stereographic North
TypeProjected system — Polar Stereographic (variant B)
Area of use World - N hemisphere - north of 60°N
Northern hemisphere - north of 60°N onshore and offshore, including Arctic.
Bounds W -180,00° · S 60,00° · E 180,00° · N 90,00°
Countries World
DatumHughes 1980
Ellipsoid Hughes 1980 a = 6378273 m · 1/f = 298.279411123
Base geographic system EPSG:10345 — Hughes 1980
Unit metre (X south, Y south)
Transformation to WGS 84 No simple transformation published (ellipsoid alone)
ScopePolar research.

Projection parameters

ParameterValueUnit
Latitude of standard parallel70degree
Longitude of origin-45degree
False easting0metre
False northing0metre

proj4 definition

+proj=stere +lat_0=90 +lat_ts=70 +lon_0=-45 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +a=6378273 +b=6356889.449 +units=m +no_defs

Paste it into QGIS, proj4js, PostGIS (spatial_ref_sys) or GDAL. +towgs84 carries the EPSG transformation to WGS 84; the official code stays EPSG:3411.

WKT (ESRI format, the .prj content)

PROJCS["NSIDC_Sea_Ice_Polar_Stereographic_North",GEOGCS["GCS_Hughes_1980",DATUM["D_Hughes_1980",SPHEROID["Hughes_1980",6378273.0,298.279411123064]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],PROJECTION["Stereographic_North_Pole"],PARAMETER["False_Easting",0.0],PARAMETER["False_Northing",0.0],PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",-45.0],PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",70.0],UNIT["Meter",1.0]]

All systems — World

Source: EPSG registry v11.022 (IOGP), through the PROJ database. Always check a code on epsg.org before contractual work.