About the Universal Polar Stereographic Projection
The Universal Stereographic (UPS) system is a coordinate system based on a specific version of the Stereographic projection. It is intended to be used as a polar accompliment for the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system.
The UTM system uses a a number of Transverse Mercator projections to produce a near-global coordinate system that covers the tropical and temperate regions. This coordinate system does not work well in the polar regions, so these are covered by the UPS system instead.
The UPS projection is intended to be used north of 84° North, or south of 80° South. The projection is defined so that true scale occurs at latitude 81° 6' 52.3" (North and South). Scale is reduced towards the pole.
See our interactive Universal Polar Stereographic Northern Hemisphere map.