1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,280 Do you live in one of those places where the food delivery driver can never seem to figure out 2 00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:09,040 where to drop your Suvlaki because the entrance to your unit is around back and down the steps? 3 00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:13,920 Have you ever tried to meet a friend at the less busy exit of the nearest transit station, or tried 4 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:19,080 to find the sports field that's literally half a mile away from the street address assigned to your local park? 5 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:23,160 Well, guess what? Google has the solution for you, a better alternative 6 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,760 to traditional street addresses. They're called plus codes. 7 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:30,120 And you may have actually seen them already in Google Maps 8 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:35,040 as strange little codes with a five-dot logo, a short combination of letters and numbers, 9 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:40,040 and then the name of a geographic location like a town. The idea behind plus codes is that they 10 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:44,000 are a quick way to identify a specific location within just 11 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:49,440 a few meters anywhere on the planet. That makes them not only a more accurate supplement 12 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:56,160 to existing street addresses, but potentially even an outright replacement in certain situations. 13 00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:01,000 Let's say, for example, you're a tourist in a country that uses an address system that you're not familiar with. 14 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:05,240 Think about how Japanese cities arrange addresses into blocks rather than streets, 15 00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:09,080 or how some Latin American countries just nickname buildings 16 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:12,720 or use distances from landmarks to denote a specific house. 17 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:15,840 Well, plus codes can be looked up for spots like these 18 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:21,000 simply by dropping a pin using the Google Maps app. This provides visitors with an absolute spot 19 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,880 to navigate to rather than the orange building 20 feet north of the big tree. 20 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,120 It also helps with remote locations that simply don't have addresses, 21 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:34,600 which is not only confusing for visitors, but can be downright life-threatening for anyone 22 00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:37,720 in an underserved area that needs emergency assistance. 23 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:42,360 Now, I can practically hear you guys shouting, we've had this for thousands of years! 24 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:45,560 And all right, Magellan, you're kind of right. 25 00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:51,320 Traditional latitude and longitude coordinates can serve as a kind of universal address. 26 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:54,520 But you'd be writing out a pretty long string of digits 27 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:59,160 in order to differentiate, say, your house from your neighbor's house a few feet away. 28 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,920 So the real key for plus codes is that they're shorter, 29 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:07,280 even though they're actually derived from traditional latitude and longitude. 30 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,840 Here's how it works. The system divides the world into blocks 31 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:14,160 of 20 degrees latitude by 20 degrees longitude, 32 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:19,840 then it divides those blocks up multiple times over, keeping a 20 by 20 grid each time, 33 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:24,360 eventually getting down to a block that is only three and a half meters wide on average. 34 00:02:24,360 --> 00:02:28,400 It's small enough to indicate something like an individual business in a strip mall. 35 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,600 An algorithm translates this block into a code of 11 characters, 36 00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:37,960 which can be further shortened by lopping off the first few characters and then appending a location to it, 37 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:42,240 such as 37XV plus CF, SurreyBC, 38 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:45,560 which happens to be the studio that I'm standing in right now. 39 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:50,720 That is a heck of a lot easier than using these coordinates if you're trying to find us, 40 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:53,960 which of course you aren't because we don't do impromptu tours. 41 00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:57,680 It's a pretty cool system, but are people actually using it? 42 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:00,800 It turns out the answer is yes. Plus codes are being used 43 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:05,560 in some of the world's most heavily urbanized areas where people are living in more informal settings, 44 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:09,320 such as favelas and tent cities, where it's difficult for residents 45 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:13,960 to receive deliveries, access government services, or even sign up for bank accounts. 46 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:18,200 That's what it was like for one and a half million people in Kolkata, India, 47 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,440 where a nonprofit called Addressing the Unaddressed 48 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:25,600 works with the local authorities to have plus codes placed on dwellings, 49 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,400 kind of similar to house numbers in North America. Plus codes have also been used 50 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:34,480 on rural need of American lands in the US, where some homes do not have traditional addresses. 51 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:39,160 In these cases, for things like voter registration, ambulance services, mail delivery, 52 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:42,560 and even just for social calls. But even if you're not trying to save the world 53 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:48,280 as part of a nonprofit, it can still be useful. Google Maps makes it easy to copy and paste plus codes 54 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:52,240 just as you would a regular address, both for locations the app already labels, 55 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,280 as well as when you randomly just drop a pin somewhere, 56 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:59,640 meaning you can copy a plus code and send it to your Uber or DoorDash driver 57 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,080 and have them pasted into Google Maps and show up right at your door. 58 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:07,960 And while we've talked a lot about Google Maps, since that's what many of you are probably using, 59 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:13,240 the coolest part is you can also use plus codes on mapping apps like organic maps and Osmand, 60 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:16,320 since the algorithm used by plus codes is open source. 61 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:21,080 Just don't expect these codes to straight up replace traditional addresses anytime soon. 62 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:25,560 I wouldn't recommend scribbling a plus code on the next package you ship via FedEx. 63 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:28,640 Thanks for watching, guys. If you liked this video, check out our other video 64 00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:32,880 on why Google Maps uses a globe now instead of a flat map.