Israeli Cassini Soldner (ICS), commonly known as the Old Israeli Grid (OIG; ''Reshet Yisra'el Ha-Yeshana'') is the old

geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical coordinate system, spherical or geodetic coordinates, geodetic coordinate system for measuring and communicating position (geometry), positions directly on Earth as latitude and longitude. ...

for

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. The name is derived from the Cassini Soldner projection it uses and the fact that it is optimized for Israel. ICS has been mostly replaced by the new coordinate system

Israeli Transverse Mercator Israeli Transverse Mercator (ITM), also known as the New Israel Grid (NIG; ''Reshet Yisra'el Ha-Ḥadasha'') is the new geographic coordinate system for Israel. The name is derived from the transverse Mercator projection it uses and the fact t ...

(ITM), also known as the New Israeli Grid (NIG), but still referenced by older books and navigation software.

History

The Cassini Soldner projection was used by the British Mandate of Palestine, when it was called the

Palestine grid The Palestine grid was the geographic coordinate system used by the Survey Department of Palestine. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922. The projection used was the Cassini projection, Cassini-So ...

. The Palestine grid reached as south as

Beer-Sheba Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most po ...

. To avoid the existence of negative coordinates in the southern

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

, the

False Northing A projected coordinate systemalso called a projected coordinate reference system, planar coordinate system, or grid reference systemis a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinates (''x'', '' ...

of ICS was increased by 1000000. As a result, coordinates in the south of Israel are higher than 800000.

Examples

An ICS coordinate is generally given as a pair of two numbers (excluding any digits behind a

decimal point FIle:Decimal separators.svg, alt=Four types of separating decimals: a) 1,234.56. b) 1.234,56. c) 1'234,56. d) ١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦., Both a comma and a full stop (or period) are generally accepted decimal separators for international use. The apost ...

which may be used in very precise surveying). The first number is always the

Easting A projected coordinate systemalso called a projected coordinate reference system, planar coordinate system, or grid reference systemis a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinates (''x'', '' ...

and the second is the

Northing A projected coordinate systemalso called a projected coordinate reference system, planar coordinate system, or grid reference systemis a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinates (''x'', '' ...

. The easting and northing are in metres from the false

origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

. The easting is always a 6 digit number while the northing has 6 or 7 digits. The ICS coordinate for the

Western Wall The Western Wall (; ; Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: ''HaKosel HaMa'arovi'') is an ancient retaining wall of the built-up hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. Its most famous section, known by the same name ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

is: :E 172249 m :N 1131586 m The first figure is the easting and means that the location is 172,249 meters east from the false origin (along the

X axis In geometry, a Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of real numbers called ''coordinates'', which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular o ...

). The second figure is the northing and puts the location 1,131,586 meters north of the false origin (along the

Y axis Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seven ...

). Also notice how the easting in this example is indicated with an “E” and likewise an “N” for the northing. The fact that the coordinate is in meters is indicated by the lowercase m. The table below shows the same coordinate in 3 different grids:

Grid parameters

The ICS coordinate system is defined by the following parameters:Published by the Mapping Center of Israel (MAPI) in th
official website
/ref> *

Projection Projection or projections may refer to: Physics * Projection (physics), the action/process of light, heat, or sound reflecting from a surface to another in a different direction * The display of images by a projector Optics, graphics, and carto ...

: Cassini Soldner *

Reference ellipsoid An Earth ellipsoid or Earth spheroid is a mathematical figure approximating the Earth's form, used as a reference frame for computations in geodesy, astronomy, and the geosciences. Various different ellipsoids have been used as approximation ...

: Clarke 80 Modified : a(m): 6378300.789 : 1/f: 293.466 * Main datum point values: : Latitude of origin (D-M-S): 31 44 2.748999999990644 : Longitude of origin (D-M-S): 35 12 43.490000000012970 * Main point grid values: : False Easting (m): 170251.5549999999 : False Northing(m): 1126867.909 * Grid scale factor: 1

References

Sources

Official ICS Grid Definition

MAPI
(Mapping Center of Israel) official website (''Hebrew'').
Geography educational website
of Haifa's university.

External links

MAPI
(Mapping Center of Israel) official website (''Hebrew'').
Geography educational website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140807090858/http://geotools.haifa.ac.il/index.php?fflag=SHOW_TERM&id=160&lang=eng , date=2014-08-07 of Haifa's university. Geographic coordinate systems Geography of Israel Land surveying systems Geodesy