
Open Location Code: An Open Source Standard for Addresses - ColinWright
https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc
======
berkes
Some alternatives that I am aware of:

[https://wikimili.com/en/Natural_Area_Code](https://wikimili.com/en/Natural_Area_Code)
, [https://what3words.com/](https://what3words.com/) ,
[https://geokey.io/](https://geokey.io/) ,
[http://geohash.org/](http://geohash.org/) ,
[https://www.mapcode.com/](https://www.mapcode.com/) .

Some of which are proprietary.

Edit: plus.codes was this same proposal. Removed from the list.

~~~
oquidave
This is why these technologies never get mass adoption; so many solutions
duplicating themselves trying to solve the same thing. Fact is, most users
would care less about numerous implementation, they need to be educated just
one solution which works fine. Personally I find plus.codes from Google user-
friendly. They are already integrated in Google Maps which has over 1 billion
downloads. They are free and opensource which means they can be used in third-
party apps. Why is someone is reinventing the wheel is beyond me.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Where do I find them in Google maps? what is the plus.code for the Eiffel
tower?
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower,+Paris,+Franc...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Eiffel+Tower,+Paris,+France/@48.8539241,2.29133,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47e6701f7e8337b5:0xa2cb58dd28914524!8m2!3d48.8560934!4d2.2930458)

~~~
FroshKiller
I don't know about that specific listing from your link, but I dropped a pin
right on l'avenue Gustave-Eiffel behind the tower and got the code V75W+43
Paris, France. Plus codes appear right under the address line.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Thanks. It seems you have to specify a pin, and not an area to get a plus
code.

~~~
drinckes
Hi - plus codes founder here.

We display the plus codes in Google Maps on all business listings.

We don't display it on political features or boundaries (typically because
having a lat/lng for "France" isn't super useful).

That particular Eiffel Tower result is for the area, not the tower itself, so
it doesn't get a plus code.

The entry specifically for the tower,
[https://g.page/toureiffelofficielle?share](https://g.page/toureiffelofficielle?share),
should display the plus code on it.

If you're on mobile, you can get the plus code for any location by just
holding your finger on the map, and then expanding the card that appears. It
should include the lat/lng and plus code.

Hope that helps!

------
Gys
I wish Google to put a tiny bit of their money [0] into promoting this more.
To counter the closed-source, for-profit what3words offering.

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/1/20749831/alphabet-
google-a...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/1/20749831/alphabet-google-apple-
cash-reserves-richest-company)

~~~
pauly
what3words has appeared twice recently as a news story on bbc.co.uk I'd not
heard of plus.codes even though now I realise I'd seen them on google maps
listings

~~~
bovine3dom
The most recent article [1] read like an advertisement. They even quoted
someone as saying "I just cannot see a downside". It's a shame they didn't
find time to mention any of the many criticisms of it, most of which are
listed on Wikipedia!

[1]: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-49319760](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49319760)

~~~
ChrisSD
BBC regional news will often promote British businesses. It's part of their
remit.

------
LarryMade2
Seems like reinventing a solid wheel with a disposable one... I'm more for
Latitude and Longitude:

\- Latitude/Longitude have been around for a long time, established, proven
reasonably reliable.

\- Ultimate more calculable, no need for lookup/conversion

\- No language issues (three words seem to be primarily English) also unless
it becomes an international standard whats to stop someone making a similar
service with different words...

\- Latitude/Longitude could be added to map legends (even with decimals, it
still is quite understandable)

\- Letter codes can be more confusing then a general numeric coordinate, get
one letter wrong and you are off the map and not sure which letter is the one.

I use Lat/Lon in my apps and can't see how these would make things more
efficient or as independent on external resources. They all seem much more
arbitrary. (edited for formatting)

~~~
fyfy18
I agree, however this and latitude longitude don't fully solve the problem the
post discusses. Just because you know where the entrance is, it doesn't
describe how to get there. Maybe the area isn't available on mapping services
(not that uncommon for small communities, even in Western countries) or maybe
you need to take a specific route to get there.

~~~
LarryMade2
I was thinking that it would be cool to have some AR thing going (ala Pokemon
Go - virtual arrow pointing toward the destination) But of course that fails
if there is no direct route from where the traveler is.

To get directions working right. I think there needs to be a good open
standard for road/pedestrian maps, but that will only be as good/reliable as
the data source... Haven't looked into open street maps but I think that would
be one to check out.

------
roberdam
There is [https://xaddress.org](https://xaddress.org)

1) Opensource and free

2) Can be used offline

3) Designed to be used in low tech environments and decoded by hand

4) Multilanguage

5) Error correction incorporated with visual avatar.

6) Short code for storing or linking.

7) Works with any map.

8) Yow know is an address when you see it.

\-----------------------------------------

Here is a comparision side by side of each option

For GPS : -6.7184 , 129.5080

XADDRESS: 7150 Magical Pearl - Maluku, Indonesia

WHAT3WORDS: percolator.surmount.retooled

GEOHASH: qyu1g0by7

MAPCODE: VQ6.1MFD

OPENLOCATIONCODE: 6Q5F 7GJ5+J6

\-----------------------------

Article about it: [https://medium.com/hackernoon/an-algorithm-that-can-give-
an-...](https://medium.com/hackernoon/an-algorithm-that-can-give-an-instant-
solution-to-7-billion-people-60bf628205a2)

Github:
[https://github.com/roberdam/Xaddress](https://github.com/roberdam/Xaddress)

(Disclosure: im the creator of Xaddress.)

~~~
edent
My office has the suffix "AFRAID SPEAK" \- I'm not sure my bosses would like
that!

It's one of the problems with word lists. At any sufficient length, you'll get
an offensive combination.

~~~
roberdam
hoover your mouse on any of the words and it tell you how many aditional words
are available, click on any of the words to change it for other more suitable
if you don't like the default.

------
tannhaeuser
Skimming through the docs, even though warts of postal addressing are
mentioned, this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes rather than
unified hierarchical postal addressing (which is still an accomplishment, and
something I can see a need for). Though this seems to work for latin scripts
only I guess.

For actually representing global postal addressing schemes with all warts and
historic practices, I know no better standard than UPU S-1. I had a project
for (partially) implementing it for a large logistics provider ten years ago.
It was one of the few cases where using XML for business data genuinely made
sense, as addresses could be represented in a line-oriented format (as you'd
write on a postal piece) and at the same time structured info in the address
(postcodes, streets, house numbering tokens) could be tagged for extraction,
validation, etc. Though to make end-of-line chars significant in XML (which we
had to somehow because postcodes are often placed at the begin or end of a
line in formal addresses) we had to represent addresses basically as
address_line_1, adress_line_2, etc. SGML could've handled this much more
elegantly, as not only can it assign meaning to line breaks via short
references, it also (theoretically) allows representation of overlapping
(concurrent) tagging structures for two or more vocabularies.

~~~
rkangel
> this seems like a (base-14?) encoding of geocodes

It's a Base-20 encoding of lat/long.

------
linsomniac
I think a more accurate description is "Open Source Lat/Long Alternative".
Addresses, at least in my part of the world, work relatively well for telling
a person where you are, given some knowledge of the town.

I can tell someone "College between Drake and Prospect" and they can picture
it in their head. Sure, it requires some level of knowledge of the town, but
no level of knowledge of the town is going to make "HW8C+FH" something that
someone can picture. They're going to have to plug it into their phone.

I work in real estate, and this doesn't really solve anything for our system
either. These codes don't solve our address problems (of which there are
many). It doesn't solve parcel identification. Not really sure what it does
solve other than shorter lat/long.

~~~
thelittlenag
Unfortunately we're conflated addresses with coordinates, but fundamentally
addresses are not geo-coordinates. Addresses are really just an ancient (500+
years!) short-hand for giving a person a set of rough directions to a "place",
with the person supplying that last mile of figuring from context exactly
where they are going. It is impressive how far we've taken this technology,
but it is really starting to falter as the information age has matured.

From my perspective any solution, like this one, that tries to solve the
problem of addresses through the lens of coordinates is doomed to failure. The
reason is that there are just too many use cases that raw coordinates cannot
supply context for.

For example when I ask for directions to a restaurant, the context of who I am
and what my relation to the restaurant is matters quite a lot. A set of
coordinates handed out uniformly to all who ask does nothing for my particular
use case. Plumbers, health inspectors, and delivery drivers don't use the same
entrance, or parking, as ride share or pedestrians.

I think it would be more productive to move to a system that is capable of
capturing and relaying these kinds of relations, or at least taking as them as
input. Better geo-coordinates miss the forest for the trees.

~~~
contingencies
Just wanted to express thanks for this very insightful comment. The range of
solutions visible in other posts must be ridiculously amusing (being absolute,
global, western-centric, experience and culture-denying, and having properties
irrelevant to local inhabitants) to anthropologists.

------
eruci
Btw, I just extended 3geonames.org - another open location code system - to
support elevation, something no other system does. (eg.
[https://3geonames.org/RIGA-FRIDAY-OKEG](https://3geonames.org/RIGA-FRIDAY-
OKEG) )

(3geonames codes are made up of 3 place names and show a semantic likeliness
when spatially close - an “anti-feature” of what3words, for example)

The slides for a recent talk at Perlcon 2019 announcing the system are here:
[https://3geonames.org/riga.html](https://3geonames.org/riga.html)

------
wereHamster
So this is based on GPS, right? How does this system deal with tectonic plate
shift? A house may move by a couple meters over years, which will exceed the
accuracy of the 12 digit code. At the very least the code should include a
timestamp (year is probably precise enough).

~~~
Tomte
Why should it handle that?

If you move a house (say, a trailer home) from Nebraska to Oregon, you
wouldn't expect the location to stay the same.

OLC encodes position on the globe (basically angles), not points on the crust
or other territorial features.

~~~
yoz-y
In a previous discussion about the topic it was mentioned that an earthquake
can move a road a few meters to a side. Tectonic shift might be less important
but physical relocation could be. A road could be moved du to a large urban
work in the area for example.

~~~
Tomte
I know that. But why do you insist that a location code stays the same? The
location has really changed.

Plus codes are not street addresses.

~~~
rkangel
> Plus codes are not street addresses.

One of the main use cases for plus codes is to be a street address in places
for which street addresses are challenging.

To put it another way - we almost always use co-ordinates to help us find a
particular physical object (peak of mountain, end of runway, house on street).
Co-ordinates that shift with tectonic movement are most useful for that.

~~~
Tomte
When an earthquake has shifted a house a meter to the right, the plus code is
(a) still good enough and (b) doesn't matter because there is not much of a
house left to "locate".

I'd even argue that especially in those catastrophic scenarios, location (as
in GPS coordinates) is still more important than addresses that depend on
physical features (like a street) that may simply be gone.

------
thelittlenag
Yet another alternative is GeohashPhrase
([https://www.qalocate.com/resources/](https://www.qalocate.com/resources/))
which is a simple and direct mapping of word tuples to geohashes.

The word tuples are intentionally structured so they can form a phrase. The
exact phrase is left up to the person, with the only constraint being that
that phrase use all the base words.

And because of how word choice is made (words that map different parts of the
geohash come from disjoint dictionaries) the phrase mapping is invariant under
changes in recalled word ordering, word use (noun to verb, or adjective to
noun), and more.

Some advantages of the GeohashPhrase:

1) Will be open source and free (Once we finalize the dictionaries and write
some real docs.).

2) Designed for offline usage.

3) Designed to be friendly to humans. Phrases and words are MUCH more friendly
than alphanumeric digits.

4) Multi-language. The encoding scheme works for most languages.

5) Resilient to errors in human memory, which tends to re-order words, change
pluralization, etc.

6) Easy to read, write, share, etc.

7) Directly decodes to a geohash.

8) Works with any map.

\-----------------------------------------

Here is a comparison side by side of each option:

Lat/Lon : -6.7184 , 129.5080

GeohashPhrase (Raw): salute tell small student muddy

GeohashPhrase ("Encoded"): The small muddy student told me of a salute.

XADDRESS: 7150 Magical Pearl - Maluku, Indonesia

WHAT3WORDS: percolator.surmount.retooled

GEOHASH: qyu1g0by7

MAPCODE: VQ6.1MFD

OPENLOCATIONCODE: 6Q5F 7GJ5+J6

\-----------------------------

(Disclosure: I work for QALocate.)

~~~
flak48
Will two close-by locations eg. just a meter apart have any part of the phrase
in common?

~~~
thelittlenag
A five word phrase is roughly a 5m x 5m region, so 1m wouldn't be enough to
move into the next block.

But in general yes, locations that are "close by" will share the same set of
words.

The mapping itself is extremely simple. A geohash is encoded as string of
alphanumeric characters where each character is in base-32. This means each
character encodes 5-bits of coordinate information. To get to a 5m x 5m region
you need 45-bits worth or 9 geohash characters.

To map this 9 character geohash to a phrase is simple - we simply use the
binary representation of the characters as a numeric index into a fixed
dictionary of words. The first character is mapped to a word in a dictionary
containing 32 entries. After that we map characters in pairs to dictionaries
of 1024 words; 2 geohash characters being 5-bits we get a 10-bit index.

So two geohashes that share the same prefix will also share the same words,
modulo our grouping scheme.

------
TheRealPomax
When does a location become an address? Because as far as I can tell, this is
a geolocation scheme, not an address system.

(As far as I know, an address is for "addressing" a person, except by mail
rather than by spoken means, which is why it's based on identifying a building
and even room in that building)

------
kujaomega
From my point of view, this approach is harder to remember than remembering 3
words (what3words).

Try to remember:

6GCRMQPX9G

3FHMRV5JMX

8FJM2QRW78

Or try to remember:

tell.fantasy.animal

zone.house.horses

home.penguin.room

Also what3words have got bad thinks as that similar words are far away from
each other and the words location are not properly translated

~~~
kragen
Also I will never forget glorified.bodily.passage and pigs.pigs.pigs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896883)

But don't confuse glorified.bodily.passage
[https://map.what3words.com/glorified.bodily.passage](https://map.what3words.com/glorified.bodily.passage)
with glorifies.bodily.passage
[https://map.what3words.com/glorifies.bodily.passage](https://map.what3words.com/glorifies.bodily.passage),
which is in a totally different part of the world.

------
cameronbrown
Project website: [https://plus.codes](https://plus.codes)

------
shiningdays
This reminds me of the Japanese Chome system:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system).

------
Rounin
There is one significant problem with how Open Location Codes are being used
and promoted by Google.

Try to find the following place on Bing or OpenStreetMap without using
Google's services: 9MHR+PW Retkowy, Poland

The 9MHR+PW part is readily decodable, and could denote any of thousands of
places around the globe. But the most significant part of the code is
routinely omitted by Google, and replaced by a place name that one needs
Google Maps to look up.

The question is, do we really need another way to link to Google Maps?

------
furyg3
Neat, but what I really want is a dynamic abstraction layer above this,
similar to DNS. I'd like a unique code that translates to a physical address
(or a system like this, or both), but is adjustable by me.

Verified by sending a physical card to the location, adjustable by the owner,
query-able via an API. Post-offices can perform a lookup and calculate postage
fees in this way.

Voluntary nomads (techies) could subsidize the service for involuntary ones
(refugees).

------
MayeulC
A good explanation of this against competing standards seems to be available
here [1]. It seems weird that they complain about discontinuities in such a
system, where there _has_ to be some discontinuities in a tiled system.

Now, could this be used as an alternative to DNS? have a registrar per tile,
and delegate if necessary.

I wish this could be used as a geo: URL, or as a location field in my ical
invites. I guess I need better support in various apps for it.

Maybe it lack elevation information to specify meeting rooms, though? Perhaps
it could be extended to support both ground and absolute elevation.

Excluding words somewhat makes sense, but also removes some opportunities for
artificial attractions, it isn't like some areas don't already have
interesting ones [2]). So I am a bit split on this one, as it does generate
longer names. Maybe emojis would be a better fit?

Now, a note about standard presentation: I would have preferred a technical
overview to an introduction that merely sums up some obvious (to me) facts,
without really getting into explaining the standard. Perhaps someone has
already come up with a way to publish standards together with a few sliders to
control the amount of content displayed? That would be great.

[1]: [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems)

[2]: [https://www.estately.com/blog/2016/09/the-complete-list-
of-l...](https://www.estately.com/blog/2016/09/the-complete-list-of-lewd-
sounding-town-names-in-america/) as an example, it gets worse if you include
foreign cities, regardless of the language.

~~~
thelittlenag
Alternative to DNS you say? Like a Location Name System!?!

Well, we're building it! I cannot supply much info right now other than the
whitepaper at
[https://www.qalocate.com/resources/](https://www.qalocate.com/resources/) but
I'm really hopeful that we'll have a beta out in the next few months.

------
gtirloni
In some Latin countries, road names are given after "important" people (for a
vague definition of important). On the cultural side, having a standard for
naming like this removes that and I think it could be a roadblock for
adoption. Politicians' names are specially used for naming roads/squares and
they are always after promoting their names in every new opportunity.

On the other side, I really like that the code can be shortened with the
addition of a location. One concern I have is that most people are very local,
they exchange addresses for local places all the time... so easily speaking
those addresses is nice thing. A short code helps with that.

And finally, I may have missed it but I didn't see landmark references
mentioned. Could it be that people would have to say "I live at XZY123 in New
York. Near that ABC456 building, you know?" That would be awkward.

~~~
tannhaeuser
It's not just latin countries. In Germany, and most east-European countries
and Russia as well I believe, newly build roads get generic names (named after
flowers, for example), then later get renamed after persons, though not living
ones, which helps with politicians promoting their names I guess.

------
theelous3
I'll forever be mad that my country (Ireland) hired some firm to create
eircode, which is a proprietary geo system.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_addresses_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#eircode)

You can't discern the eircode for a given address, as far as I am aware,
without looking it up, and lookups are limited to 10 by paywall.

We paid 27m euro for what has already been solved by open source, and for some
reason we have to continue to pay for it.

~~~
dmoo
If you enter the address in to google maps it will give you the eircode. The
issue in Ireland is the non unique addresses in rural areas. The fact that the
last 4 characters are randomly distributed means that a sequence for addresses
on the same street is not something you can derive. You need to look up each
in turn.

~~~
theelous3
Ireland's non unique addresses aren't a problem for any of the open standards
around this I've seen. Eircode is unnecessary. Using one of these geo location
centric systems also means no central system is required to add new ones etc.

------
hendry
Ah [https://plus.codes/](https://plus.codes/) .. I've noticed them on Google
maps:
[https://s.natalian.org/2019-08-20/yard.jpeg](https://s.natalian.org/2019-08-20/yard.jpeg)

However: [https://plus.codes/8VG3+J4](https://plus.codes/8VG3+J4) Says it
couldn't find it.

Did I make a typo? There is no mention of a checksum in the doc.

~~~
lwhsiao
In that case you need to include Singapore. The inclusion of Singapore allows
the plus code itself to be shorter.

Alternatively, you could use the full plus code: 6PH58VG3+J4

------
LoSboccacc
there's something I don't understand, not coming from a mapping background:
sixth decimal place of latitude/longitude is already down to about 10cm
precision, so using two 8:24 fixed point would give you comparable precision
with half the encoding length than this format (using two fixed points dword
encoded straight in base 32). why these encoding prefer to use space
partitioning more than encoded coordinates?

~~~
ColinWright
I thought this was comprehensively covered in the linked document.
Specifically, it says:

 _... latitude and longitude provide an exact location, are used internally by
GPS and satellite navigation devices, and are sometimes printed on paper maps.
However they are rarely seen on city or street maps and are difficult for
people to use. They consist of long and complicated numbers, have different
ranges (-90 to 90 vs. -180 to 180) and need to be used in a specific order.
(To express a reasonably precise position requires between 14 and 18
characters.)_

 _A system of encoding location information into a short and an easy to use
code would solve these problems._

It goes on to say:

 _Easy to use: The codes must be short enough to be remembered and used. This
means that they need to be shorter than latitude and longitude and about the
same length as a postal code or telephone number. The symbols used to make up
the code should not include characters that can be easily confused (e.g., 1
and I, 8 and B, 2 and Z, 5 and S etc.)_

Does this not answer your question?

~~~
LoSboccacc
this doesn't really answer the question, because encoding the
latitude/longitude number in base32 fixed point makes them short, readable and
memorizable as much as it would encode them in this scheme, and as I said
above, would even result in a shorter string at comparable precision.

once they're letter, people wouldn't care if internally are mapped to raw
numbers or hierarchical quads, a program would do the conversion back and
forth anyway for both systems.

so for example the vatican's cupolone center under a b32 fixed point lat-
encoded notation would be KUDRL6677SLE at full precision while it's opencode
equivalent would be 15 letters (except for the shortening, which could be done
here as well)

~~~
ColinWright
I've just glanced again at the linked document and your comments seem to me to
be adequately addressed there, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting/asking.

 _The characters that are used in Open Location Codes were chosen ... to
avoid, as far as possible, Open Location Codes being generated that included
recognisable words._

...

 _Open Location Codes are encodings of WGS84 latitude and longitude
coordinates in degrees._

...

 _The first approach ... provides codes that can be visually compared, or
alphabetically ordered to determine if they are close to each other. The
second approach allows the code area to be refined using only a single digit.
If the entire code was generated using the second approach, it would result in
codes that could not be reliably compared visually._

I thought the benefits were explained quite clearly, so I'm at a bit of a loss
as to what you're suggesting.

~~~
LoSboccacc
all encodings are arbitrary, to some degree. this scheme of using hierarchical
partitioning gives two shortcoming: degenerate area at poles and variable area
at fixed precision. using raw degrees doesn't.

why is the former preferred than the latter by mappers?

it can't be just 'because it's letter and not numbers' because, as
demonstrated above, that's just encoding data in memoizable forms, which
doesn't depend on the choice of the mapping scheme.

being able to visually compare codes also isn't enough of a differentiator,
since nearby places would have nearby encoding even in a raw
"latitiude/longitude to base-32" scheme, and if it's important that variation
is on the least important digit one could just encode lat:long bits
interleaved, so that the least significant bits of each are rightmost.

the question I have is not about the encoding, as shown it's easy to create an
encoding with the desired characteristics that uses the degrees by themselves
without the partitioning and its issues, the question is why use these area
based system with all the deformation they have instead of properly encoded
degrees, what's the benefit to cartographers etc.

------
qtech
There are so many established and commonly used grids, such as MGRS (military)
or Maidenhead (amateur radio), this just makes things more complicated.

------
logfromblammo
Reinventing UTM/MGRS again, I see.

The major problem with these as addressing standards, and with open location
code, is that most people do not live or receive mail at a fixed location in
the middle of the ocean. Most location codes encode an empty quadrilateral of
ocean.

Addressing with efficient encoding needs to be dense in cities, and sparse in
uninhabited wilderness.

~~~
thelittlenag
Doing this saves you about two bits worth of information while usually greatly
increasing complexity.

To see why consider how geohashes work. As you add letters you telescope in to
a more precise region. The land/water distinction is less information than
even what is encoded by the very first character of your 9 or 10 character
geohash.

~~~
logfromblammo
If one could maintain an index of a single reference point for human
settlements, as geodetic latitude and longitude, addresses could relatively
reference from a specific center, and include relative waypoints.

us;il;chi = {41.88206,-87.62781} The Chicago base reference point, positive
x-axis points to 0 degrees N, positive y-axis points to 90 degrees east.

us;il;chi;0,0 = Madison and State, street level

us;il;chi;-278,+305 = 111 S. Michigan, street level. This is between the lions
of the Art Institute. Horizontal offsets are in meters.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165 = east 165m into the museum, over the bridge, into
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165>180:32,+1 = south 32m into the Modern American Art
wing, up the stairs one level, in the top level of the 2-level sculpture
court. Vertical offset is in building stories.

us;il;chi;-278,+305>90:165>180:32,+1>270:13 = west 13m into gallery 262, home
of _Nighthawks_.

A geohash can tell you where _Nighthawks_ is, in terms of a geodetic location
to a certain precision, but it doesn't tell you that it's on the second floor
of a building whose second floors don't all connect, or how to get there to
see it. If doesn't matter how many extra characters of precision you add when
the place you want to be is separated from the locations of the public access
points. Addressing sometimes has to include routing information. Complexity is
sometimes needed.

The base reference point for Manhattan (us;ny;nyc) could have its reference
grid rotated to 29 degrees NNE, but cities without a grid system needn't
bother.

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gwbas1c
Honestly, I want an address that follows me as I move, so I don't need to keep
updating every service that sends me mail.

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jimkri
Was actually looking into something like this to help with matching companies
addresses to building addresses to track the number of tenants in each
building.

Check out UBID ([https://ubid.pnnl.gov/](https://ubid.pnnl.gov/)) which uses
plus.codes

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new_here
These codes could benefit from some sort of distinct prefix so that users,
browsers and apps could identify it as an open location code and treat it as
such apart from a random string. Other examples being things like @username or
#hashtag.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
Unclear if you already know this, but the usage of the plus sign and the name
"plus codes" for this scheme serve exactly that purpose. If you see a code
with a plus in it, with usually 2 characters after the plus, it is most likely
a plus code. Speaking from experience it is relateively easy to quickly
identify by glancing at a webpage or a body of text.

Additionally the plus serves a similar purpose to a dot in the decimal number
notation: the plus is always put after the 8th character in the globally-
adressed code. So if you see a code with plus after the 4th character, it is
immediately clear that the code is a local-notation, and you need to know
approximately what country or city this code is referencing to, in order to
properly identify a point on the globe. Usually the locale is pretty clear and
4-6 digit codes are just fine, and the plus character provides a possibility
to distinguish them from each other.

~~~
new_here
Missed that, thanks for pointing it out.

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therealmarv
On my Android I copy&paste this short locations code from Google Maps to
OSMAnd+ to get the same location. Works faster and better than confusing long
and lat (which I don't know how to copy out of Google Maps btw).

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bpaddock
No one has mentioned H3: Uber’s Hexagonal Hierarchical Spatial Index.

[https://eng.uber.com/h3/](https://eng.uber.com/h3/)

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cjslep
Bummer, I was hoping we were going to all memorize quaternion coordinates and
visualize travelling around the globe as moving along a 4 dimensional
hypersphere.

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bitwize
Oh, these Google Map codes -- the geographic equivalent of Internet Time.
Pass.

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jstewartmobile
I think triangles would have made more sense.

~~~
Tharkun
The docs also seem to indicate that 3mx3m is the smallest grid they can
address, but at the same they use addressing in slums as a use case...who has
that much real estate in the slums?

~~~
drinckes
Hi - plus codes founder here. You can just keep adding digits and the area
gets smaller. The way I think of it is:

+XX "house" (13x13 meters) +XXX "bathroom" (3.5x2.8 meters) +XXXX "chair"
(87x56cm) +XXXXX "envelope" (22x11cm)

In Kolkata the NGO (Addressing the Unaddressed) are using +XXXX codes.

~~~
meerkat14
Wait a minute. How are Kolkatans with (probably) cheap phones getting their
hands on coordinates that accurate when phone GPS is usually only good to
within ~5m?[1] I assume the postal workers are getting high end equipment?

[1] "GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.)
radius under open sky" \--
[https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/](https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/)

~~~
WorldMaker
First guess: Signs, maybe? You only need a few accurate surveyors and they
could write coordinates in places. Use the cheap accuracy to get close then
follow the signs.

Looking up the charity mentioned, they even have a nice photo of such a sign,
so my guess appears validated:
[https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/services](https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/services)

Neat.

