State Plane Coordinate System State Plane Coordinate System The State Plane Coordinate System (SPS or SPCS) is a set of 124 geographic zones or coordinate systems designed for specific regions of the United States. Each state contains one or more state plane zones, the boundaries of which usually follow county lines. There are 110 zones in the contiguous US, with 10 more in Alaska, 5 in Hawaii, and one for Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands. The system is widely used for geographic data by state and local governments. Its popularity is due to at least two factors. First, it uses a simple Cartesian
Distance from a point to a plane the point on a plane formula_33 closest to an arbitrary point formula_34 is formula_2 given by where and the distance from the point to the plane is Distance from a point to a plane In Euclidean space, the point on a plane formula_1 that is closest to the origin has the Cartesian coordinates formula_2, where The distance between the origin and point formula_2 is formula_5. If what is desired is the distance from a point not at the origin to the nearest point on a plane, this can be found by a change of variables that moves the origin to