Plus Code Finder
Convert coordinates to Plus Codes and back — useful where street addresses are sparse.
By Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor · Updated October 2026
For example, Times Square's full Plus Code is 87G8Q257+6Q — an address for the crossroads computed from its coordinates alone, no street database consulted.
How to use Plus Code Finder
An address computed from geography itself, not from a street database:
The Plus Code Finder gives the Plus Code (Open Location Code) for any latitude and longitude, and converts codes back to the coordinates they name. Enter a point and read its code — the open address system Google built for places with no street address.
- 1Enter coordinates or a Plus Code.
- 2Copy the converted value.
What people use Plus Code Finder for
1. Addressing the unaddressed
Rural homes, informal settlements, new developments: Plus Codes give them a shareable address today. The Latitude and Longitude Finder supplies the coordinates to encode.
2. Delivery and pickup points
A gate, a dock, a trailhead kiosk — spots street addresses describe badly get a code that lands on the exact square.
3. Emergency location sharing
A code read over the phone puts responders on a ~14-metre square. It pairs with the QR Location Helper for printed signs at trailheads and venues.
4. Checking a code from the wild
Found a code on a sign or listing? Decode it here and see the square it names before trusting it.
Worked examples
Google's own headquarters encodes to 849VCWC8+R9 — the published reference example this encoder's arithmetic reproduces exactly. Times Square is 87G8Q257+6Q; the Eiffel Tower, 8FW4V75V+9Q.
Near a known place, the code shortens: Q257+6Q works with 'New York' because the first characters are implied by locality. Short codes are local dialect; full codes are the universal language.
Plus Code anatomy
What the string's parts do.
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| First 4 characters | An area about 14 × 14 km |
| First 6 | About 1.1 km × 1.1 km — neighbourhood scale |
| 8 characters (before the +) | About 275 × 275 m |
| 10 characters | A cell about 14 × 14 m — the standard address precision |
| 11th character | Refines to roughly 3.5 × 2.8 m — a doorway strip |
The alphabet omits vowels and look-alikes (20 safe characters), so codes cannot spell words or be misread at a glance. The system is open and offline-computable — no server decides your address.
Plus Codes encode location into a grid reference that works even where street addresses are weak
Open Location Code converts latitude/longitude into an alphanumeric area code. It is useful for rural sites, meeting points and locations that lack a conventional street address.
A Plus Code represents an area, not a legally assigned address. Short codes also depend on locality context, so preserve the full code when sharing across regions or systems.
How to interpret the result
The most common errors come from using a correct result to answer the wrong geographic question. Keep these points in mind for Plus Code Finder:
- Sanity-check every pasted pair by eye on a map before using it: latitude/longitude swaps land you in the ocean so reliably that 'the Null Island bug' has a name. A two-second visual check costs nothing and catches most transcription errors.
- Match precision to source: consumer GPS earns about five decimals; quoting six or seven implies a survey you didn't do. Rounding deliberately is honesty, not loss.
Limits & appropriate use
Coordinates are lossless in principle and lossy in practice, and every loss is human: swapped axes, wrong hemispheres, datum relics, precision theatre. The converters eliminate the notation problem completely — DMS, UTM, MGRS and Plus Codes are exact translations on WGS84 — but they cannot eliminate the provenance problem: a number without its datum and its source is a rumour. Old NAD27-era documents, hand-typed sheets and seven-decimal CSVs each carry their own failure signature, and the honest tool answers with validation errors and visible pins rather than silent corrections.
The practical boundary is therefore organisational, not mathematical: teams that standardise storage (decimal, WGS84, sane precision) and ritualise the map check enjoy a lossless system; teams that don't accumulate expensive folklore. For work beyond consumer frames — control points, machine guidance, legal description — the escalation is geodetic: licensed surveyors, published transformations and national datums. Everything between a pasted waypoint and that door is exactly where this toolset lives.
- Datum-critical legacy data → published grid transformations (NTv2/HTDP).
- Control points and machine guidance → licensed geodetic survey.
- Aviation/marine charts → the chart's own datum and notation, verbatim.
Data & methodology
The shared converter encodes a coordinate as a Plus Code and accepts supported full Plus Codes. A code identifies an area and its decoded point is not necessarily the original position.
For source details, licences and model limitations, see Data Sources and Methodology.
Key terms worth knowing
- Datum
- The reference shape model (WGS84 for GPS) that coordinates are angles against.
- DMS
- Degrees-minutes-seconds notation; 1° = 60′ = 3600″.
Editorial guidance: MapBench explains the method and limitations so the tool can be used as a transparent reference, not as a black-box answer. For legal boundaries, safety-critical routing, surveying, engineering, regulated decisions or official statistics, verify the result with the responsible authority or a qualified professional.
Category: Coordinates. Results are intended for everyday analysis and planning unless a page explicitly states otherwise.
Method, assumptions & limits
- This tool’s method
- The shared converter encodes a coordinate as a Plus Code and accepts supported full Plus Codes. A code identifies an area and its decoded point is not necessarily the original position.
- Before relying on the answer
- Record the coordinate order, signs, format and datum where specified. In GeoJSON, positions are longitude first; many input forms ask for latitude first.
- What the result cannot establish
- A format conversion preserves the source measurement's uncertainty. Extra digits do not improve the original GPS fix.
Coverage: Worldwide. Search, basemap and external data requests may use third-party services; browser-based does not mean every operation is offline. Read the source and licence notes, calculation methodology and privacy policy. If a result looks inconsistent, report a correction with the inputs and mode used.
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about the calculation, accuracy and appropriate use.
Same as what3words?
No — Plus Codes are an open Google system; different grid and licence.
Which datum do these coordinate tools use?
MapBench location tools generally use WGS84 latitude and longitude, the same global reference system commonly used by GPS and web maps.
Do more decimal places always mean better accuracy?
No. More digits increase numeric precision, but they cannot improve the accuracy of the original GPS, survey or source data.
Can I copy the result into GIS software?
Usually yes. Check the format, axis order and datum expected by the destination software before importing.
Who runs Plus Codes?
Nobody centrally — the Open Location Code is an open standard (created at Google Zurich, now community-stewarded). Any app can compute codes offline, including this one.
Full code or short code?
Full codes work worldwide with no context. Short codes drop the area prefix and need a reference locality ('Q257+6Q, New York') — the finder produces full codes you can shorten safely.
How big is a 10-character cell?
About 14 metres square at the equator, narrowing in longitude toward the poles — precisely, 0.000125 degrees per side at the final pair's resolution.
Can I navigate to a code?
Google Maps and many other apps accept Plus Codes in search. The code pasted there lands on the cell this finder shows.
Codes for places with no name?
That is the point of the system — oceans aside, every square metre of land can carry a code whether or not anyone named it.
Do codes expire or change?
No — a code is pure arithmetic on coordinates. It names the same cell forever.
Precision beyond 11 characters?
Possible (each extra grid character refines further), but 11 already beats consumer GPS accuracy; more characters are ceremony.
Related tools and resources
Coordinates first: the Latitude and Longitude Finder; words instead: the What3Words-Style Location Helper; share it: the QR Location Helper.
More free tools
Sources, methodology & editorial trust
- ✓ Browser-first processing where supported
- ✓ External sources are documented
- ✓ No account required for public tools
- ✓ Review data sources
Calculations are documented with their assumptions, limitations and source context rather than presented as unexplained answers.
Reviewed and maintained by Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor of MapBench.
Part of our coordinates hub
Plus Code Finder sits in the coordinates cluster, alongside 63 other tools that answer neighbouring questions with different methods or datasets.
You may also need
When this answer is only part of the job, these clusters cover the next step.
Read the guide behind this tool
What Are Plus Codes? Open Location Codes Without a Street Address — Plus Codes turn coordinates into short codes you can share by text. Where they help, where they don’t, and how to encode or decode them.