Google Maps is the most popular navigation service with tens of millions of people using it each day. Even non-Android devices use it just because it is far better than anything else. Most people use it to search places and get directions but only a few know that Google Maps also works with coordinates. Users can search by coordinates or see the coordinates of a place.
Why Does Google Maps Also Use Coordinates?
Google Maps itself works as a GPS as well. GPS satellites do not use maps to determine the location of a device that is connected to it. They transmit radio waves in the form of pulses that are broadcasted constantly. Also at any given time there are at least 4 GPS satellites visible on the sky regardless of the device’s position on the glove.
Usually the device will connect to 3 of them and by calculating how long it takes to send a signal back to the satellite it will determine the distance to that satellite. Also the satellites themselves know the distance between each other. Using this information the GPS device will determine its exact position on the ground which will be calculated in coordinates.
Google Maps works as a GPS navigation system on Android devices. The same Google Maps are also used on desktop computers by regular users but they do not have a GPS device and instead they just search manually for locations.
What the user will see is his exact location on the map but it will not be displayed in coordinates. It will only show his exact position in a visual manner.
How To Use Coordinates In Google Maps
Google Maps supports searches by coordinates and it can show the coordinates of a searched location. Here’s how to do it:
1. Open Google Maps: http://maps.google.com
2. Search for a place or location.
3. If the location is found the map will be marked. Right click on the location on the map.
4. Select What’s here. Beneath the search box a new box will appear that will contain a picture of the location, the address and the GPS coordinates. Select the coordinates and copy them. We now know the coordinates of a location.
5. Paste the coordinates in the search box and hit search.
6. The map will be market exactly where those coordinates are but the location initially searched will no longer be shown.
This is the process to find out the coordinates of a place and to search for a place by coordinates. Google Maps accepts 3 format types for coordinate search. It can be decimal degrees (DD), degrees and decimal minutes (DMM) or Degrees, minutes and seconds (DMS). These are the most popular formats used to search for coordinates and Google recognizes them automatically without the user having to select what format he will be using.
The same type of search based on coordinates can performed on Android devices. What cannot be done is to find out the coordinates of a location in a similar fashion to how it is done in a browser. On the other hand coordinates do not help much a person that only needs his Android device just to get from one place to another.
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