Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates

This is a WikiProject, an open group of Wikipedia editors. New participants are welcome; feel free to talk to us!

WikiProject Geographical coordinates aims to better organize location information in articles containing a set of numbers that identifies location on and relative to the Earth. In particular, we aim to establish a standard for uniform handling of latitude and longitude coordinates as given in various Wikipedia articles, somewhat analogous to how ISBN numbers are handled.

Quick Geographical coordinates how to

NOTE: This is a concept currently under development, so this is subject to change.

To add 57°18′22″N 4°27′32″W / 57.30611°N 4.45889°W / 57.30611; -4.45889 to the top of an article, use {{Coord}}, thus:

{{Coord|57|18|22|N|4|27|32|W|display=title}}

These coordinates are in degrees, minutes, and seconds of arc.

"title" means that the coordinates will be displayed next to the article's title at the top of the page (in desktop view only; title coordinates do not display in mobile view) and before any other text or images. It also records the coordinates as the primary location of the page's subject in Wikipedia's geosearch API.

To add 44°06′45″N 87°54′47″W / 44.1124°N 87.9130°W / 44.1124; -87.9130 to the top of an article, use either

{{Coord|44.1124|N|87.9130|W|display=title}}

(which does not require minutes or seconds but does require the user to specify north/south and east/west) or

{{Coord|44.1124|-87.9130|display=title}}

(in which the north and east are presumed by positive values while the south and west are negative ones). These coordinates are in decimal degrees.

Degrees, minutes and seconds, when used, must each be separated by a pipe ("|").
Map datum must be WGS84 if possible (except for off-Earth bodies).
Avoid excessive precision (0.0001° is <11 m, 1″ is <31 m).
Maintain consistency of decimal places or minutes/seconds between latitude and longitude.
Latitude (N/S) must appear before longitude (E/W).

Optional coordinate parameters follow the longitude and are separated by an underscore ("_"):

dim: dim:N (viewing diameter in metres)
region: region:R (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 or ISO 3166-2 code)
type: type:T (landmark or city(30,000), for example)

Other optional parameters are separated by a pipe ("|"):

display
- |display=inline (the default) to display in the body of the article only,
- |display=title to display at the top of the article only (in desktop view only; title coordinates do not display in mobile view), or
- |display=inline,title to display in both places.
name: name=X to label the place on maps (default is PAGENAME)

Thus: {{Coord|44.1172|-87.9135|dim:30_region:US-WI_type:event|display=inline,title|name=accident site}}

Use |display=title (or |display=inline,title) once per article, for the subject of the article, where appropriate.

Per WP:ORDER, the template is placed at the bottom of the article in the 'end matter', after any navigation templates, but before all categories, including the {{DEFAULTSORT}} template. The {{coord}} template may also be placed within an infobox, instead of at the bottom of the article.
For full details, refer to {{Coord/doc}}.
Additional guidance is available at obtaining coordinates and converting coordinates.

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Council includes this WikiProject in its Geographical directory. This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Maps:

WikiProject Geography

WikiProject Maps

WikiProject Geographical coordinates

...and is the parent project of:

Wikipedia-World

Other WikiProjects that make use of geographical coordinates include:

Related WikiProjects

Associated portals