A calibration method to calibrate a substrate table position in a lithographic apparatus, the method including repeatedly irradiating a pattern onto a surface of the substrate so as to create a two dimensional arrangement of patterns on the surface of the substrate, the irradiating including displacing the substrate table between successive irradiations to irradiate the pattern onto different locations on the surface of the substrate, reading out the patterns in the two dimensions to obtain pattern read out results, deriving incremental position deviations from the read out results of neighboring patterns in dependency on the position of the substrate table in the two dimensions, deriving from the incremental position deviations a position error of the substrate table as a function of the two dimensional position of the substrate table and calibrating the position of the substrate table using the position dependent position error.