This is aninformation page. It is not anencyclopedic article, nor one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels ofconsensus andvetting.

Shortcut WP:OGCWP:OGC

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

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

Looking at a printedmap oratlas, either those you own or at alibrary.

Printed maps display coordinates plotted to thedatum selected by the mapmakers. In the UK (which usesOSGB36), Ireland, France and Germany, these datum will not be the coordinates used in Wikipedia (WGS84) thus leading to differences of over 100m. Seegeographic coordinate system for more information. For country specific systems, such as the UK OS grid references,see here.

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 followingbookmarklets (create a new bookmark with this code as the URL):
  • There is awiki-coords bookmarklet, maintained inGitHub.
  • The following bookmarklet will create an output such as{{coord|51.5030515|-0.1281352}}:

    #"\/maps\/.*@([0-9.-]+),([0-9.-]+)"); prompt('',"{{coord|" + matches[1] + "|" + matches[2] + "}}"); }());

  • The following bookmarklet will create an output such as{{coord|51|30|10.99|N|0|07|41.29|W|display=title}}:

    #"\/maps\/.*@([0-9.-]+),([0-9.-]+)");coord=[matches[1],matches[2]];output='{{coord|';for(x in [0,1]){neg=(coord[x]<0);coord[x]=Math.abs(coord[x]);deg=Math.floor(coord[x]);minr=(coord[x]-deg)*60;min=Math.floor(minr);sec=Math.floor((minr - min)*60*100000)/100000;output+=deg+"|"+(min<10?'0':'')+min+"|"+(sec<10?'0':'')+sec.toFixed(2)+'|'+(x==0?(neg?'S|':'N|'):(neg?'W|':'E|')+"display=title}}");};void(prompt('Coordinates for Wikipedia',output));

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.

List of services, directly providing Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons compatiblegeotagging metadata.

Currently preferred geotagging templates are:{{coord...}} for English Wikipedia and{{location...}} or{{location dec..}}for Wikimedia Commons.

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 appropriateattribution.

Google Earth makes it easy to search for the coordinates of any location and zooming in on them. The coordinate format can be chosen viaTools → Options → 3D View → Show Lat/Long. There are many ways to obtain coordinates:

• Move the mouse pointer to where you want, then use the keyboard to select the Menu itemEdit → Copy View Location 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 toEnglish (UK) (Tools → Options → General → Language settings).
• 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 theView in Google Maps 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 buttonOpen this page in your default web browser 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 (Add Placemark-button or MenuAdd → Placemark. 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<coordinates>...</coordinates> 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 thehjl_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 thehjl_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 thekmlconvert tool.

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,https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/10.79375/122.00671 includes a latitude of10.79375 and a longitude of122.00671.

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 (inlatitude, longitude format).

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 packhttp://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: ForTucson International Airport →worldwind://goto/world=Earth&lat=32.11611&lon=-110.94109&alt=24389"

• TheUnited States Geological Survey's public domainGeographical Names Information Servicedatabase 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 CensusTIGER
• US CensusBoundary 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 placenames in Antarctica, tryGeographic Names Information System, Antarctica
• For placenames in Australia, tryGeoscience Australia Place Name Search
• For placenames in Canada, try theCanadian 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 theWGS84 latitude and longitude amongst other useful values.

• Using aGPS 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

• UK places and Irish places traditionally use grid references, and a latitude /longitude system tied to anOSGB36 datum. This gives a 112 m (367 ft) difference.
• TheNAD83 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 withGCJ-02 orBD-09. Vector sources are more frequently affected than satellite sources. Usethis gadget to obtain deobfuscated coordinates, then double check on OpenStreetMap.

Finally, add the coordinates to the relevant article:

• Geographic coordinate system
• List of geographic information systems software
• List of GIS data sources
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates

• Wikipedia information pages
• WikiProject Geographical coordinates

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas