What3Words-Style Location Helper
Convert between coordinate forms and short location code workflows supported by the tool.
By Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor · Updated October 2026
For example, a three-word address names one specific 3 m × 3 m square of the Earth's surface — a front door, a gate, a tent peg — in words a human can say, hear and remember.
How to use What3Words-Style Location Helper
Three words instead of fourteen digits — how the idea works:
The What3Words-Style Location Helper supports workflows around three-word location addresses — the system that divides the world into 3-metre squares, each named by three dictionary words. Use it to understand, check and move between word addresses and the coordinates the rest of your tools speak.
- 1Enter coordinates or a code.
- 2Read the converted form.
What people use What3Words-Style Location Helper for
1. Receiving a word address
A customer, guest or casualty sends three words. Understanding the system's grain (one 3 m square) tells you what to do next — plot it in the official app, then bring the coordinates to the Coordinates Lookup Tool.
2. Choosing an addressing system
Word codes versus Plus Codes: proprietary memorability versus open computability. This page lays out the trade so the choice is informed, not fashionable.
3. Event and site logistics
Festivals, film sets and field hospitals publish word addresses for gates and muster points — this helper explains to your team what the string they received actually is.
4. Teaching location literacy
Three addressing philosophies — coordinates, computed codes, word codes — make a complete lesson. This page is the words lecture.
Worked examples
57 trillion squares of 3 m × 3 m tile the planet (land and sea alike). A word address does not name a building or a person — it names one of those squares, and the building is a separate fact.
The system deliberately places confusable word combinations far apart, so a mishearing lands obviously wrong rather than next door — the design answer to the spoken-address problem, explained here because it shapes how carefully you should still read codes back.
Word codes versus the alternatives
Three philosophies of 'where', compared fairly.
| Property | Three-word codes | Plus Codes | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form | Three dictionary words | Alphanumeric code from coordinates | Two signed numbers |
| Cell | 3 m × 3 m square | ~14 m at 10 characters, refinable | As precise as the decimals |
| System | Proprietary (what3words) | Open standard (Open Location Code) | Universal |
| Works offline from scratch? | Needs the app/data | Yes — pure arithmetic | Yes |
| Say it over a phone? | Designed for exactly that | Possible, character by character | Painful |
This helper is independent: official word-address lookup lives in what3words' own app and licensed API. The page's job is literacy and workflow — what the squares are, what they are not, and how to move between systems.
Three-word addresses, handled honestly
what3words has carved a niche in delivery and emergency workflows by giving every 3-metre square a memorable three-word name — and it is also a proprietary system whose API requires a licensed key. MapBench refuses to hide a shared key in the page, so this tool works the respectful way: paste your own what3words API key (it stays in your browser tab) and the official service converts your three-word address to coordinates, or skip the key entirely and use the built-in open alternative.
That alternative is Plus Codes — Open Location Codes — which give any spot on Earth a short, shareable code computed by pure open math: no database, no licence, no expiry. The page encodes and decodes them on the spot, so even without a w3w key you leave with a working short-code for your location. The framing matters as much as the function: proprietary grids and open grids coexist in the real world, and a good tool tells you which is which, what each costs, and where the exits are. Coordinates from either path copy cleanly into every other tool on the platform.
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 What3Words-Style Location Helper:
- 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.
- Adopt one storage format — decimal degrees, WGS84, five or six decimals — for every dataset you own, and convert at the edges for display. Mixed notations in one column are the root of nearly every coordinate bug.
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
Converting three words to coordinates requires the user’s what3words API key and sends it to the provider. A separate Plus Code alternative is computed locally.
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
- Converting three words to coordinates requires the user’s what3words API key and sends it to the provider. A separate Plus Code alternative is computed locally.
- 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.
Official what3words API?
Behaviour depends on available open implementations in the tool — for licensed what3words products use their official apps.
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.
Can this page look up any three words officially?
Official conversion between words and coordinates is what3words' own service, delivered through their app and licensed API. This helper explains the system and supports the surrounding workflow; it does not impersonate their API.
How many word combinations exist?
The English list uses about 40,000 words; three-word combinations from it name the 57 trillion squares. Other languages have their own lists, and addresses do not translate word-for-word between them.
Are the words assigned randomly?
Deliberately not: memorable, common words go to populated places, confusables are separated by distance, and offensive words are excluded — curation is the system's real product.
Emergency services acceptance?
Many UK and international emergency services accept word addresses because callers often cannot give anything better. If you send one, read it back slowly — and give coordinates too when you can.
Word address or postcode for a delivery?
Postcodes find the street; a word square finds the door, gate or dock on it. Couriers increasingly accept both — the square wins where doors outnumber addresses.
Can I invent my own three words for my house?
No — the assignments are fixed by the system. Your square already has its words; the official app tells you them.
Do word addresses expire?
The system operator controls the list; addresses are stable by design intent, but the guarantee is a company's, not mathematics' — the honest difference from open codes.
Related tools and resources
Open codes: the Plus Code Finder; coordinates: the Coordinate Converter; share by QR: 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
What3Words-Style Location Helper 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
Understanding GPS Coordinates: Formats, Datums and Precision — A practical guide to latitude/longitude: what decimal degrees and DMS really mean, why datums matter, and how many decimal places you actually need.