Open Location Code

The Open Location Code (OLC) is a geocode based on a system of regular grids for identifying an area anywhere on the Earth.

[5] They are similar in length to a telephone number (e.g., 849VCWC8+R9) but can often be shortened to only four or six digits when combined with a locality (e.g., CWC8+R9, Mountain View, California).

This includes the many unnamed streets in Cape Verde,[10] multiple slums in India,[11][12][13] and even some Native American reservations in the United States.

[14] In Laxmi Nagar, Pune, the nonprofit Shelter Associates used codes to bring delivery services to specific homes and businesses in the slum for the first time in 2020-21.

[12] Plus codes are also being used by the International Rescue Committee in Somalia for immunization and family planning programs.

Each code describes an area bounded by two parallels and two meridians out of a fixed grid, identified by the southwest corner and its size.

To avoid misreading or spelling objectionable words, the encoding excludes vowels and symbols that may be easily confused with each other.

The next step requires dividing the square so far used, to refine the position into a 4-by-5 grid, and finding the cell to which the coordinates are pointing.

Alternatively, use formula BASE(Degrees from South or West * power(20, 4) , 20) in any Spreadsheet or Calculator to compute the OLC Code.

It is common to omit the first 4 characters from the code and add an approximate location, such as a city, state, or country.