Coordinate encoding workflow
Read geohash cells without claiming location accuracy
A geohash identifies a rectangle. Decoding recovers that rectangle, not the exact coordinate that originally produced it.
Content updated: · Maintainer and corrections
Read the bits and degree bounds
Geohash uses alphabet 0123456789bcdefghjkmnpqrstuvwxyz. Each character stores five bits; bits alternate longitude, latitude, starting with longitude. Each bit chooses the lower or upper half of the current interval.
At precision n, longitude has ceil(5n/2) bits and latitude floor(5n/2). Width is 360/2^longitudeBits degrees and height 180/2^latitudeBits. Up to 12 characters, these dyadic boundaries and their midpoints are exactly representable by the calculation used here.
Check boundaries and neighbors
Coordinates must be finite with latitude −90…90 and longitude −180…180. Precision is an integer 1…12. +180 encodes into the last longitude cell; −180 into the first. Midpoint equality selects the upper half.
Eight neighbors are found one cell width or height away from the center. Longitude wraps across the antimeridian. A neighbor whose center would pass ±90 latitude is null, explicitly absent rather than wrapped through a pole. Uppercase input is accepted with a lowercase-normalization notice; whitespace is rejected.
Use the visual as a cell diagram
The native SVG world grid and parent-cell zoom draw degree rectangles without an external map. Accessible text reports south, north, west, east and center. The center is a representative midpoint, not the encoded point's known original location.
A longer hash produces a smaller cell but does not improve the source measurement. The tool makes no metre accuracy, survey, address or land-location claim. Prefix equality helps group cells; short shared prefixes cannot measure distance across a cell boundary.
Treat encoded locations as private data
A geohash can disclose a home or sensitive site even without a street address. Processing stays in page memory: no map requests, device geolocation, uploads, persistence, URL data or input analytics.
Editing removes the report. JSON exports include the cell and neighboring hashes, so inspect them before sharing. Source snapshot: 2026-10-09. The canonical example ezs42 has center 42.60498046875, −5.60302734375 degrees.
Data provenance