Random location generator

How to use it

1. Choose where the points may fall: on land anywhere, in one country, near a place, or anywhere including the sea.
2. Set how many points you want and press Generate.
3. Read the coordinates, the country and the nearest town of each point. Click a row to fly to it.
4. Download the points as CSV or GeoJSON.

5 practical uses

1. Pick random survey or sample sites across a country or a region.
2. Choose a random destination for a trip, a photo challenge or a game.
3. Generate test points for a map, an app or a database.
4. Run a geography quiz: name the country of a random point.
5. Pick random spots within reach of home for a weekend outing.

The maths behind it

Uniform points on a sphere need the latitude drawn as φ = asin(2u − 1), not uniformly, because a band near the pole has less area than one near the equator. The longitude is uniform. A point is then kept only if a point-in-polygon test puts it on land or in the chosen country (rejection sampling). Points within a radius use d = r√u and a uniform bearing, so the disc is filled evenly.