Convert between latitude/longitude and Plus Codes — Google's open addressing system for places without street names.
Plus Codes, formally called Open Location Codes, are a geocoding system developed by Google and released as open source. They encode any location on Earth into a short alphanumeric code like 588MC9X8+RC, which can be typed, shared and looked up on Google Maps. The system was designed for places that do not have street addresses — rural areas, informal settlements, open land.
The encoding divides the Earth's surface into a grid of progressively smaller cells. The first four characters identify a large area (about 100×100 km), the next two narrow it to about 5×5 km, and each additional character refines the precision. A 10-character code (the default) resolves to about 14×14 metres — enough to find a building entrance. The + sign separates the first eight characters (the area code) from the local code.
The algorithm is public, deterministic and does not require an internet connection. This tool implements it in JavaScript from the published specification. No Google API is called, and the coordinates you type are not sent anywhere.
The encoding uses a base-20 alphabet (23456789CFGHJMPQRVWX) to encode latitude and longitude into progressively finer grid cells. Each pair of characters narrows the area by a factor of 20 in each dimension.
The algorithm was developed at Google but released as open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. Anyone can use it without Google's permission or API.
Yes — paste the Plus Code into the Google Maps search bar and it will navigate to the location.
The alphabet avoids letters that look like digits (0, O, I, L, 1) and letters that could be offensive in short combinations (A, B, D, E, K, N, S, T, U, Z). That leaves 20 characters.
No. The encoding and decoding are pure arithmetic and run entirely in your browser.
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