Wikipedia:Obtaining geographic coordinates

This page lists ways to obtain and add geographic coordinates to articles.

=Obtaining= There are various ways to obtain geographic coordinates. Note that regardless of the source of coordinates, it is a good practice to evaluate whether they appear reasonable at first glance.

From printed maps
Looking at a printed map or atlas, either those you own or at a library.

Wikipedia compatible geotagging metadata generators
List of services, directly providing Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons compatible geotagging metadata.

Currently preferred geotagging templates are: for English Wikipedia and or for Wikimedia Commons.

Generic web-based services
These services are web based, and provide online methods for obtaining coordinates.

Be sure to read the licensing information carefully so that data providers receive an appropriate attribution.

Google Maps
Google Maps can be used to find coordinates 3 different ways, although many other sites make use of Google imagery with specialist overlays.
 * The simplest way to get coordinates from Google Maps is to right-click on the desired location and click "What's here?". The coordinates are now shown in the search box.
 * Coordinates can also be extracted from generated links with the following procedure. First locate the place you require coordinates for, and double click on it to centre the map around that point. Then click "Link" at the top of the map, and the coordinates (in degrees and parts of a degree in decimals) appear in the address bar, e.g. "https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51.455558,-2.605047&spn=0.032304,0.069523". In this case the latitude is 51.455558, and the longitude is -2.605047. The reverse is possible by entering the lat and long into the search bar, with a space between them.
 * Copying the coordinates from the URL can be made easier with a Javascript-supporting browser, by adding any of the following bookmarklets (create a new bookmark with this code as the URL):
 * There is a wiki-coords bookmarklet, maintained in GitHub.
 * The following bookmarklet will create an output such as : ""
 * The following bookmarklet will create an output such as : ""
 * To use these bookmarklets, centre the map on the desired point and then open the newly created bookmark. A coordinate template text will appear, ready to be pasted to Wikipedia.

Google Earth
Google Earth makes it easy to search for the coordinates of any location and zooming in on them. The coordinate format can be chosen via. There are many ways to obtain coordinates:
 * Move the mouse pointer to where you want, then use the keyboard to select the Menu item  to copy the coordinates to the clipboard. More convenient is the associated keyboard shortcut. If it is not provided in the currently chosen language of Google Earth, change it to.
 * Move the mouse pointer to where you want, and note the coordinates displayed on the bottom of the earth display window. The numbers will have to be written from the screen manually, but this does let you choose an appropriately rounded value, without excess precision, for the location you're capturing.
 * Center the screen on your location by double-clicking on it, then use the  button at the top (Google Earth 4.1 and newer). This will open Google Maps within Google Earth. You can see the center coordinates in decimal format in the address bar, but unfortunately you cannot copy them directly. To do so, use the button   to display the same Google Maps page in your browser with unrestricted access to its address bar. Of course, all the methods listed above for Google Maps are also available.
 * Center the screen on your location by double-clicking on it, then create a placemark ( -button or Menu  . The "New Placemark" window displays the coordinates.
 * For the coordinates of an existing placemark, right click on it on the sidebar and select "Copy". This makes the clipboard hold a KML ("Keyhole Markup Language") description of the placemark. Since KML is XML, it's easily manipulable. Towards the bottom of the placemark is a tag  which contains the long/lat coordinates in decimal degrees. Note that the order of the coordinates is lon/lat; you may want to swap the both in order to get the more common lat/lon notation. Also note that the precision is ridiculously high; you'll probably want to trim it down.
 * Install the Google Earth version of the hjl_get_Coor tool: Ald-Hjl-Koord-en.kmz. Once it's installed, a crosshair icon appears in the middle of the Google Earth screen. Move the view so that the crosshair is on your desired location, and then click on it. There is a link to the hjl_get_Coor tool, which gives the coordinates back in your chosen wiki markup that can be copied and pasted to an article.
 * The exported kml or kmz file can also be converted to templates using the kmlconvert tool.

OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap can be used. For convenience, close any open sidebar (to allow a simpler URL format like the one below). Simply navigate to the desired point by right-clicking on it, then select the "Centre map here" option from the dialog. Finally, extract the coordinate values from the browser URL (N.B. not the shortlink).

For example,  includes a latitude of   and a longitude of.

A quicker alternative to extract coordinates is to right click on a desired point in the map and select "Show address". From the sidebar search results, copy the coordinates (in  format).

World Wind
NASA World Wind can access a large online database of U.S. and global placenames (cities, villages and other geographic & anthropogenic features). Street addresses can be found using Yahoo and Virtual Earth geocoders (works for the US, Australia, UK, Japan... and maybe some other countries). (Offline search requires this pack http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Add-on:Classic_Placenames_cache_pack) Press Ctrl-F, enter the official place name, click Search, you will probably find the place you're looking for. Click Go. (of course you can navigate to the desired spot with your mouse; select View->Show Position to see the coordinates) Press Ctrl-C to copy the decimal coordinates. Paste it into Wikipedia. Example: For Tucson International Airport → worldwind://goto/world=Earth&lat=32.11611&lon=-110.94109&alt=24389"

For the US

 * The United States Geological Survey's public domain Geographical Names Information Service database service is extremely extensive, although riddled with errors. It also provides linkouts to topozone and terraserver so that you can tweak the results to your liking. Most of these coordinates use
 * US Census TIGER
 * US Census Boundary and Annexation Survey
 * Find Longitude and Latitude coordinates by US Zip Code
 * Search engine for GPS coordinates of latitude and longitude of the United States of America

For other regions

 * For placenames in Antarctica, try Geographic Names Information System, Antarctica
 * For placenames in Australia, try Geoscience Australia Place Name Search
 * For placenames in Canada, try the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base (CGNDB) Querying Canadian Geographical Names
 * For placenames in the UK, Streetmap.co.uk is very useful for clicking on a precise point to show the coordinates. Near the foot of a page displaying a map is a link "Click here to convert/measure coordinates" which takes you to a "Grid Conversion Results" page with the WGS84 latitude and longitude amongst other useful values.

From other sources

 * Using a GPS receiver with a clear view of the sky.


 * Looking for "Waypoint" files on sites for GPS users, e.g.
 * Geocaching.com
 * Outdooractive.com
 * Findu.com


 * Googling for a city name together with "latitude", "longitude" will usually yield a plethora of useful results (example)


 * Wikidata has geocoordinates for many objects

=Formats and formatting=
 * UK places and Irish places traditionally use grid references, and a latitude /longitude system tied to an OSGB36 datum. This gives a 112 m difference.
 * The NAD83 map datum is sufficiently close to WGS84 for initial use. It is best to double check on a mapping site such as WikiMapia.
 * Cordinates obtained in China from commercial sources (Google, Bing, Baidu, etc.) may be obfuscated with GCJ-02 or BD-09. Vector sources are more frequently affected than satellite sources. Use this gadget to obtain deobfuscated coordinates, then double check on OpenStreetMap.

=Add to article= Finally, add the coordinates to the relevant article:

= See also =
 * Geographic coordinate system
 * List of geographic information systems software
 * List of GIS data sources
 * WikiProject Geographical coordinates