Thursday, July 12, 2007

How to find GPS coordinates from Google Maps

How to extract the decimal coordinates of a location using Google maps for use in your GPS.

  1. Find your location.
    Go to http://maps.google.co.uk/ search on your destination and zoom in.

  2. Centre on the location.
    Right mouse on the exact spot and choose "Center map here"

  3. Click on "Link to this Page".
    This will display a URL something like: "http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=buckingham+palace&ie=UTF8&ll=51.500795,-0.142264&spn=0.003166,0.007231&z=17&iwloc=addr&om=1"

  4. Extract the coordinates.
    Embedded in the URL you will see "ll=" (that is double L for Lima). Immediately following that are the coordinates, in this example 51.500795,-0.142264. The first is N (S if negative) the second is E (W if negative).

If you want to convert these coordinates to degrees, minutes and seconds you can use The Federal Communications Commission converter at:
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html
at

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:24 pm

    Useful, thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:51 pm

    very usefull! Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andrej5:46 pm

    Thanks, came in really handy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:38 am

    Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure this out for some time!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7:25 pm

    It's also on the bottom of the screen in Google Earth.

    ReplyDelete
  6. dan11:20 pm

    I am into a sport called Geocaching (www.geocaching.com for the uninitiated) and this is a useful tip for our sport as sometimes you want to find coordinates without having to go out with a GPS.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:58 am

    The simplest way to find the gps coordinates in several geocoding formats,

    http://www.map-gps-coordinates.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Andrew8:01 pm

    Thanks for sharing this informative post with us. Most of us always have a confusion at this question but now it has been resolved forever.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Keith9:09 am

    Very useful for the Geocachers out there. For WGS84 users Google also displays the degrees, minutes and seconds embedded in the information as follows - http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=52%C2%B0+43'+256,+0%C2%B0+47'+270

    which gives N52 43 256 E 0 47 270

    ReplyDelete
  10. Unknown7:34 pm

    Does anyone know how to do it in reverse? Given some coordinates, how can I find the position on Google Maps

    ReplyDelete