Markers at arbitrary points on Google Maps

Google maps is great: being able to find anything in the UK with just a postcode is very nice. However, sometimes the marker that it places on the map for you is not quite right.

For instance, SO16 8BY is the postcode for Oaklands Community School. The marker it places on the map for you is at the wrong end of the street which is very annoying. It turns out that it’s possible to take the latitude and longitude from a google url and pop it directly into the query box. Thus the actual location if Oaklands School, 50.942002, -1.453006, can be shown.

The best way to obtain the lat/long of a point is to take a blank map, center the map at the desired point (say by double clicking at that point) and click on “Link to this page”. The lat/long value you want is the bit in the url after &ll= and before the next &.

As an extra bonus, Google Maps allows one to add more or less arbitrary plain text into the marker overlay, by placing it in brackets after the query in the search box. So the final map would be: Oaklands Community School.

roo:

Nice trick!

roo:

Thanks John. I found this very helpful when creating a map for Ray’s Textile Cabin.