The World file reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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World file

A world file is used by Geographic Information Systems to coordinate raster map images. The standard was created by ESRI corporation of Redlands, California.

Small-scale rectangular raster image maps can have an associated world file for GIS map software which describes the location, scale & rotation of the map.

These world files are 6 line ASCII files with decimal numbers on each line. If the map files end in .jpg or .tif -- then the separate world file ends in .jpw or .tfw for example.

World file Universal Transverse Mercator parameters:

A: meters/pixel in horizontal x Easting direction 

D: rotation about y axis, always 0

B: rotation about x axis, always 0

E: meters/pixel in vertical y Northing direction

C: x Easting UTM coordinate of center of upper left pixel in meters

F: y Northing UTM coordinate of center of upper left pixel in meters
These values are used in a six-parameter affine transformation: 

x1 = Ax + (By) + C

y1 = (Dx) + Ey + F


x1 = calculated UTM Easting coordinate of the pixel on the map

y1 = calculated UTM Northing coordinate of the pixel on the map

x = column number of a pixel in the image counting from left

y = row number of a pixel in the image counting from top

A = x-scale; dimension of a pixel in map units in x direction

B,D = rotation terms

C,F = translation terms; x,y map coordinates of the center of the upper-left pixel

E = negative of y-scale; dimension of a pixel in map units in y direction
Note:  The y-scale (E) is negative because the origins of an image and a geographic coordinate system are different. The origin of an image is located in the upper-left corner, whereas the origin of the map coordinate system is located in the lower-left corner. Row values in the image increase from the origin downward, while y-coordinate values in the map increase from the origin upward.

USGS map of Falkner Island
Example: Original falknermap.jpg is 800x600 pixels (detail shown). Its world file is falknermap.jpw and contains:

32.0

0.0

0.0

-32.0

691200.0

4576000.0
The position of Falkner Island light on the map image is: 
x=171 pixels from left

y=347 pixels from top
this gives: 
x1=696672 meters Easting

y1=4565024 meters Northing
Note that the UTM zone is not given so the coordinates are ambiguous -- they can represent a position in any of the 60 UTM zones. In this case, approximate latitude and longitude (41.2, -072.7) were looked up in a gazetteer and the UTM zone was found to be 18 using a web converter.