Latitude & Longitude Finder

• What are latitude and longitude?
• Coordinate formats explained
• How to use the tool
• Famous landmark coordinates
• Decimal precision reference
• Use cases & worked examples
• Methodology & data sources
• How this compares to alternatives
• Limitations & accuracy notes
• Glossary
• Frequently asked questions

What are latitude and longitude?

Latitude and longitudeare the two numbers that pinpoint any location on the surface of Earth. Together they form the world's universal address system — the same coordinate pair works in any country, any map, any GPS device, any database.

Latitude measures how far north or south of the equator a point is, in degrees. The equator is 0°, the North Pole is +90°, and the South Pole is –90°. Lines of constant latitude are called parallels because they run parallel to the equator. They are equally spaced — every degree of latitude is roughly 111 kilometers (69 miles) apart.

Longitude measures how far east or west of the prime meridian a point is, in degrees. The prime meridian — the 0° line — passes through Greenwich, England, fixed there by international agreement in 1884. Longitude runs from –180° (west) to +180° (east), and the two values meet at the antimeridian on the opposite side of Earth from Greenwich. Lines of constant longitude are called meridians, and unlike parallels they converge at the poles — at the equator a degree of longitude is also ~111 km, but at 60° latitude it shrinks to ~55 km, and at the poles it collapses to zero.

Modern coordinates use the WGS84 datum(World Geodetic System 1984) — a mathematical model of Earth's shape standardized by the US Department of Defense and adopted globally for GPS. Every coordinate produced by this tool, by Google Maps, by OpenStreetMap, and by your phone's GPS uses WGS84, which means they are all directly compatible.

Coordinate formats explained

The same point can be written in several different formats. They all encode exactly the same lat/lng — they just look different. Here are the four formats this tool produces, with the Eiffel Tower as an example:

All four are interchangeable — you can convert between them losslessly. This tool converts automatically and shows all four side-by-side, with one-click copy buttons for each.

How to use this tool

Famous landmark coordinates

A reference table of well-known places. Useful as test inputs and as a sanity check when you're learning to read coordinates.

Decimal precision reference

How precise does your coordinate need to be? It depends on what you're doing. Each extra decimal place in a coordinate gives you 10× more precision.

This tool reports 5 decimal places (~1.1 m), which matches the practical limit of consumer GPS receivers. Going beyond 6 places is theoretical only — no GPS device or geocoder can actually deliver that precision.

Who uses lat/lng coordinates

1. Geocaching and outdoor adventure

Geocachers use lat/lng to find hidden caches, mark trail waypoints, and plan routes through wilderness. The DMS format is common in geocaching listings — this tool converts to DMS instantly so you can paste into a GPS unit.

2. Real estate and property records

Property listings, deed records, surveys, and zoning permits all use lat/lng to anchor a parcel to the ground. Brokers and title researchers look up coordinates to verify a property's exact location and confirm what jurisdiction it falls under.

3. Field research and citizen science

Biologists, ecologists, archaeologists, and citizen scientists log observations with lat/lng so the data can be aggregated and mapped. iNaturalist, eBird, GBIF, and most research platforms expect WGS84 decimal degrees.

4. Logistics, dispatch, and ride-share

Delivery dispatchers, trucking, rideshare operators, and field-service crews use coordinates to pinpoint pickup and drop-off locations more precisely than a street address can. Coordinates work even when an address is missing or malformed.

5. Drone flight planning and photogrammetry

Drone operators set takeoff/landing waypoints by lat/lng, plan survey grids over fields, and tag photos with GPS metadata. Most flight software accepts decimal degrees or KML files containing them.

6. Marine and aviation navigation

Boats and aircraft still use DMM (decimal minutes) on charts and chartplotters. The format is a holdover from paper navigation but remains the standard in marine and aviation, so this tool exposes it alongside DD and DMS.

7. Spatial databases and developer tooling

Developers building apps use coordinates as primary keys for places, foreign keys into spatial indexes, and inputs to geospatial libraries (PostGIS, Turf.js, Geopandas, Shapely). The geohash format here is especially useful for prefix-based spatial queries.

8. Education and reference

Teachers, students, and trivia enthusiasts use coordinate lookups to learn world geography, study time zones, and explore the relationships between places. The antipode field is a fun teaching tool — most people are surprised that the opposite side of NYC is in the Indian Ocean off Australia.

Methodology & data sources

Map and basemap

The interactive map is rendered with MapLibre GL JS using vector tiles from OpenFreeMap, a free public tile service built on OpenStreetMap data. No API key, no rate limits.

Address autocomplete

Address suggestions in the search box come from Photon, a typo-tolerant geocoder built on OpenStreetMap. Photon supports street addresses, city names, landmarks, and businesses worldwide.

Reverse geocoding

When you click the map or use GPS, the resulting coordinate is sent to Nominatim to get a human-readable place name. For ocean and remote points, Nominatim returns the nearest land or sea name.

Coordinate format conversions

All format conversions (DD ↔ DMS ↔ DMM ↔ geohash) run in your browser. They are pure math — no API call. Geohash uses the standard base-32 alphabet (0–9, b–z minus a/i/l/o) at 9-character precision (~5 m).

Distance from equator and prime meridian

Distance from the equator is computed as |lat| × 111 km (the constant for a degree of latitude). Distance from the prime meridian is |lng| × 111 × cos(lat) km — adjusted for the convergence of meridians toward the poles. The antipode is (–lat, lng ± 180°).

How this compares to alternatives

Several tools and services offer lat/lng lookups. Here's an honest side-by-side.

Limitations & accuracy notes

• GPS accuracy varies. Smartphone GPS is typically accurate to 5–10 m outdoors with a clear sky, 20–50 m indoors or in urban canyons. The coordinates the tool reports are only as precise as the GPS fix you started from.
• Reverse geocoding is approximate.Clicking a point and asking "what address is this?" returns the closest known address, not the exact one. In rural areas the answer can be the wrong house.
• Online-only. The map tiles, address search, and reverse geocoding all require an internet connection. For offline use, note your coordinates while connected.
• UTC offset is solar, not political. The tool computes UTC offset from longitude (15° per hour). Political time zones follow national borders and may include daylight saving — they often differ from the solar answer by 1–2 hours.
• WGS84 only.All coordinates use the WGS84 datum. Older datasets in NAD27, NAD83, or local datums won't match exactly — the difference can be 10–200 m depending on location. For high-precision survey work, use professional GIS software.
• Geohash precision is fixed. The tool emits 9-character geohashes (~5 m precision). For shorter or longer hashes, use a dedicated geohash library.

Glossary

Latitude

The angle north or south of the equator, from –90° (South Pole) to +90° (North Pole). Lines of constant latitude are called parallels because they run parallel to the equator.

Longitude

The angle east or west of the prime meridian (Greenwich, England), from –180° to +180°. Lines of constant longitude are called meridians and converge at the poles.

WGS84

World Geodetic System 1984 — the global standard datum for GPS, modern mapping, and most digital geographic data. All coordinates in this tool are WGS84.

Decimal degrees (DD)

Coordinates as a single decimal number per axis: 48.8584, 2.2945. The standard for digital mapping, web APIs, and GIS software.

Degrees-Minutes-Seconds (DMS)

The traditional sexagesimal format: 48°51'30.2"N, 2°17'40.2"E. Each degree has 60 minutes; each minute has 60 seconds. Common in nautical charts, surveying, and navigation.

Decimal Minutes (DMM)

A hybrid format used heavily in aviation and marine: 48°51.5034'N, 2°17.6700'E. Degrees are integers, minutes are decimal.

Geohash

A short alphanumeric string that encodes a lat/lng with hierarchical precision — longer hashes = more precise. Adjacent locations share a common prefix, which makes geohashes useful for spatial indexing in databases.

Antipode

The point on Earth diametrically opposite a given location. If you drilled straight through the center of Earth, you would emerge at the antipode. Mathematically: (–lat, lng ± 180°).

Prime meridian

The 0° line of longitude passing through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. Established as the global reference in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference.

Equator

The 0° line of latitude — the great circle equidistant from both poles. The equator divides Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Related tools and resources

Need to measure between two coordinate pairs? Use Distance Between Two Places. To draw a circle around a point, use the Map Radius Tool. For US-only address-to-county lookups, use Address to County Lookup. To find the elevation at a coordinate, use Elevation Finder. Browsing the US by state? Each state has a county directory:

Frequently asked questions

Map rendering by MapLibre GL JS with OpenFreeMap tiles. Address autocomplete by Photon and reverse geocoding by Nominatim, both built on OpenStreetMap data. Format conversions, geohash encoding, and antipode calculation run client-side. All coordinates use the WGS84 datum.