AM Latitude and longitude are the most exact way to describe a place. Street names change, the same address exists in several cities, and delivery apps and map pins need numbers, not words. This converter takes an address, a landmark or a postcode and returns its coordinates, or does the reverse and finds the address closest to a pair of coordinates. Every result is shown on a map, in the three common formats, with one-click copy buttons and a link that opens the spot in Google Maps.
The address data comes from OpenStreetMap, the free map of the world built by millions of volunteers, through its Nominatim search service. You get 30 lookups a day with no sign-up. Results are saved for 30 days, so looking up the same address again is instant and does not count. Picking a point on the map and converting between coordinate formats never use a lookup.
How to convert an address to latitude and longitude
- Stay on the Address to coordinates tab and type the address. Write it the way you would on an envelope: house number, street, city, then country. "350 5th Ave, New York, USA" works better than "empire state bldg ny".
- Press Get coordinates. The lookup usually takes one or two seconds.
- Check the match. The best match is selected first and pinned on the map. If the search found more than one place (for example Springfield exists in many US states), the other matches are listed above the result and shown as small gold dots on the map. Click the right one.
- Copy the format you need. Decimal degrees, DMS and degrees with decimal minutes each have a Copy button. Latitude and longitude can also be copied one at a time for forms that ask for them in separate boxes.
- Open it elsewhere if needed. Open in Google Maps and Open in OpenStreetMap show the same point on those sites, which helps when you want Street View or directions.
The page address updates with your search, so you can bookmark the result or send the link to someone.
How to find the address for a set of coordinates
Reverse geocoding answers the opposite question: what is at this spot? You might have coordinates from a phone photo, a GPS tracker, a delivery driver or a spreadsheet, and need a street address.
- Open the Coordinates to address tab.
- Paste the coordinates. The box accepts decimal (40.748442, -73.985659), DMS (40°44'54.4"N 73°59'08.4"W) and degrees with decimal minutes (N 40 44.906 W 73 59.140). If the letters show the longitude came first, the tool swaps them for you and says so.
- Press Find address. You get the nearest address OpenStreetMap knows, its postcode and country, and the distance between your point and that address when they are more than about 30 meters apart.
You can also click anywhere on the map. The click shows that point's coordinates straight away without using a lookup. Press Find the address here only when you also need the street address.
Coordinate formats: decimal, DMS and decimal minutes
The same point can be written three ways. Most websites, spreadsheets, apps and schema markup use decimal degrees. Printed maps, surveys and aviation often use DMS. Marine and some GPS devices use degrees with decimal minutes. Here is the Empire State Building in each format:
| Format | Example | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Decimal degrees (DD) | 40.748442, -73.985659 | Google Maps, spreadsheets, APIs, schema.org markup |
| Degrees, minutes, seconds (DMS) | 40°44'54.4"N 73°59'08.4"W | Paper maps, property surveys, photo metadata viewers |
| Degrees, decimal minutes (DDM) | 40°44.907'N 73°59.140'W | Boat and handheld GPS units, geocaching |
In decimal degrees, the sign carries the direction. Positive latitude is north of the equator and negative is south. Positive longitude is east of Greenwich and negative is west. That is why every place in the Americas has a negative longitude and every place in Australia has a negative latitude. Latitude always comes first and must be between -90 and 90. Longitude must be between -180 and 180.
How to convert decimal degrees to DMS by hand
Take 40.748442. The whole number, 40, is the degrees. Multiply the rest by 60: 0.748442 × 60 = 44.90652, so 44 is the minutes. Multiply the remaining decimal by 60 again: 0.90652 × 60 = 54.39, so the seconds are 54.4 after rounding. Because the number is positive and it is a latitude, the letter is N: 40°44'54.4"N.
Going the other way, divide: degrees + minutes ÷ 60 + seconds ÷ 3600. For 73°59'08.4"W that is 73 + 59 ÷ 60 + 8.4 ÷ 3600 = 73.985667, and W makes it negative: -73.985667. The DMS converter tab does this as you type and accepts any of the three formats.
How accurate are the coordinates?
Two different things decide accuracy: how precise the numbers are, and how well the map knows the address.
Precision is about decimal places. Each extra decimal place is ten times more exact. The tool shows six, which is more than enough for any address:
| Decimal places | Example | Precision at the equator | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 40.75 | about 1.1 km | A town or district |
| 3 | 40.748 | about 110 m | A neighborhood or large site |
| 4 | 40.7484 | about 11 m | A building or plot |
| 5 | 40.74844 | about 1.1 m | A door or parking spot |
| 6 | 40.748442 | about 11 cm | Surveying level detail |
Map accuracy is about the data. Where OpenStreetMap has the building and its house number mapped, the result points at that building. Where it only has the street, the result can point at the street or an estimated spot along it, and the matched feature shown under the result tells you which. Coverage is very good in most of Europe and North American cities, and thinner for new housing developments and rural roads. When the pin matters, for example for a delivery point, zoom in on the map and click the exact entrance. The click gives you corrected coordinates instantly.
What each result shows
Every result card holds more than the two numbers, and each part helps you judge whether the match is right:
- Name and full address. The name is the building, shop or landmark when OpenStreetMap has one, otherwise the house number and street. The full address below it runs from the smallest part to the country.
- Type badge. What was matched: a house, a building, a street, a city or a postcode area. A type of Street or City tells you the result is not a specific building.
- Postcode and country code. Handy for shipping forms and for checking that you found the right country.
- Matched OpenStreetMap feature. A link to the exact map object the result came from. If the data is wrong, anyone can fix it on OpenStreetMap, and the correction reaches this tool once the saved result expires after 30 days.
- Distance, for reverse lookups. How far your point is from the address found. A few meters is normal. Hundreds of meters means you are in a field, a park or an unmapped area.
Using coordinates in a spreadsheet
When you keep a list of locations, put latitude and longitude in two separate number columns, not one text column. Use the separate Copy buttons for each value, or split a decimal pair with Data > Split text to columns in Google Sheets. Format both columns to show six decimal places so the sheet does not hide digits.
With two points in a sheet you can work out the straight-line distance between them. For a store in row 2 and a customer in row 3, with latitude in column B and longitude in column C, this formula returns kilometers:
=6371 * ACOS(COS(RADIANS(B2)) * COS(RADIANS(B3)) * COS(RADIANS(C3) - RADIANS(C2)) + SIN(RADIANS(B2)) * SIN(RADIANS(B3)))
Multiply by 0.621371 for miles. As a check, the Empire State Building (40.748442, -73.985659) to the Eiffel Tower (48.858260, 2.294501) comes out at about 5,830 km. This is distance as the crow flies, so driving distance for local delivery will be longer.
Where store owners and local marketers use coordinates
LocalBusiness schema markup
Google's LocalBusiness structured data has a recommended geo property, and Google's documentation says latitude and longitude need a precision of at least 5 decimal places. The Copy schema geo button gives you a ready block with six decimals that you can paste into your JSON-LD. The schema markup generator builds the rest of the LocalBusiness markup around it.
Google Business Profile and map pins
If your pin on Google Maps sits in the wrong spot, customers get directions to the wrong door. Find your address here, check the pin against the map and satellite view in Google Maps, then drag your pin in your Business Profile to match. Keeping the same address format on your website, profile and directories also helps local rankings, which our local SEO leads guide covers.
Store locators, delivery zones and shipping
Store locator apps, local delivery radius settings and some courier integrations ask for coordinates instead of an address. Convert each location once and save the decimal values in your locations sheet.
Lead generation for agencies
Agencies that sell local SEO or build sites for local businesses often work area by area. The Local Lead Finder in AM Jarvis finds businesses from Google Maps listings by city and niche and scores weak profiles, and this converter is handy for checking where a listing actually sits. If you build rank and rent sites, the rank and rent guide explains how location targeting fits in.
Troubleshooting common problems
- No match found. Remove apartment numbers, floor numbers and business names, then search street, city and country only. Check the spelling of the street. Very new streets can be missing from OpenStreetMap.
- The result is in the wrong city or country. Add the state or country to the search. "Paris" alone finds France, "Paris, Texas" finds Texas.
- A postcode finds the center of an area. Postcodes cover many buildings, so a postcode on its own returns a central point for that area, not a specific building. Add the street and house number for a building.
- The pin is on the street, not the building. That building is not mapped with its house number yet. Click the building on the map to get its exact coordinates.
- Coordinates land in the ocean. Latitude and longitude are probably swapped, or a minus sign is missing. Western longitudes are negative, so New York is -73.98, not 73.98.
- The same coordinates look different in another app. Check the format. 40.7484 in decimal and 40°44' in DMS are the same latitude written differently, not two different places.
Tip: To read coordinates from Google Maps on a computer, right-click any spot on the map. The first line of the menu shows the decimal coordinates, and clicking it copies them. Paste them into the Coordinates to address tab to see the OpenStreetMap address for the same spot.
Limits, fair use and data license
This tool follows the OpenStreetMap Foundation's usage policy for its public Nominatim service. That policy allows at most one request per second from any one service and does not allow bulk geocoding of big lists or search-as-you-type autocomplete. So this converter looks up one address at a time when you press the button, sends at most one request per second for the whole site, identifies itself to OpenStreetMap, and saves results so repeat lookups never go back to their servers.
- 30 lookups per visitor per day. Saved results, map clicks and the DMS converter are free and unlimited.
- Up to five matches per search. There is no batch or CSV upload.
- If you need to geocode thousands of addresses, use a commercial geocoding service or run your own Nominatim server, which the OpenStreetMap community documents.
Addresses and coordinates come from OpenStreetMap and are published under the Open Database License (ODbL). You can use them in your own projects, including commercial ones, as long as you credit "© OpenStreetMap contributors". Map tiles on this page are served by the OpenStreetMap Foundation and carry the same credit in the map corner.