Plus codes are the short, free addresses Google Maps shows for places without one, like 9C3XGV52+2V. Encode a point, decode a code, and see its area on the map.
How to use it
Paste coordinates or a plus code, or click the map, or use your location.
For a short code, add the town: GV52+2V London.
Choose the code length. Read the full code, the short code and the area on the map.
5 practical uses
Give an address to a place that has none: a market stall, a field gate, a beach.
Decode a plus code from Google Maps into coordinates.
Make a delivery point for a courier or a taxi.
Share a meeting spot in a park or a festival ground.
Put a plus code on a business card or a sign.
The maths behind it
A plus code encodes the latitude (offset by 90) and the longitude (offset by 180) in base 20 with the alphabet 23456789CFGHJMPQRVWX. The first eight characters give four pairs, each pair dividing the previous cell by 20 in both directions, from a 20° cell down to 1/8,000°; the characters after the plus sign refine the cell in a 4 × 5 grid. A short code drops the first four or six characters, which a reference location recovers.
An open address made of letters and digits that stands for a rectangle on the Earth, used by Google Maps for places without a street address. A full code needs no town; a short code needs one.
How big is the area a plus code names?
A ten-character code is about 14 m by 14 m, a house. Eleven characters is about 3 m.
Are plus codes free to use?
Yes. Open Location Code is an open standard released by Google under the Apache licence and computed here in your browser.
Embed this tool on your website
Paste this code where the tool should appear. It shows the tool alone, without this page's text, and links back here. It is free to use; the map data credit stays on the map.
Change height to suit your page. To open the tool with a place already set, add the settings from this page's address bar (the part after #) to the end of the src. The embedded tool asks the visitor's browser for their location only when they press the button, and the allow attribute lets that work inside the frame.