Random Coordinates
Pick a uniformly random latitude/longitude on Earth.
Overview
The Random Coordinates generator picks a uniformly-distributed latitude and longitude on the surface of the Earth, returning the point in decimal degrees, degrees/minutes/seconds and as a Google Maps URL. Unlike a naive latitude pick this tool corrects for the spherical geometry, so points near the poles are not over-sampled.
The tool is aimed at travel bloggers picking a "next destination" prompt, geography educators building practice exercises, game designers seeding map content and OSINT enthusiasts sampling random locations for study. Long-tail searches like "random point on earth generator", "uniformly distributed lat lon picker" and "random coordinates with map link" all resolve here.
How it works
A naive approach picks latitude uniformly in [-90, 90] and longitude in [-180, 180], which oversamples the poles because each one-degree latitude band has a smaller surface area near the poles than at the equator. The correct method picks u and v uniformly in [0, 1], then computes lon = 360 * u - 180 and lat = arccos(2 * v - 1) - 90 (in degrees). This inverse-CDF transform produces points uniformly on the sphere, so the probability of landing in any region is proportional to its area.
Random bits come from the OS cryptographic source, scaled to the [0, 1) range with rejection sampling to avoid modulo bias. Most random points (about 70%) land in ocean because oceans cover that fraction of the planet, which the tool surfaces by checking the result against a coarse land/sea mask.
Examples
Random → 23.4567°N, 102.1234°E (over land, southern China)
Equator-biased → close to 0°N, varies longitude widely
Pacific Ocean draw → 12.3456°S, 145.6789°W
Land-only filter → repeats sampling until a land hit
FAQ
Why does it produce so much ocean?
Oceans cover about 71% of the Earth's surface, so a uniform sample lands in water roughly that often. Toggle the land-only filter to keep retrying until you get a continent hit.
Is the latitude really uniform on the sphere?
Yes. The inverse-CDF transform via arccos(2v - 1) corrects for the spherical surface element, so equal-area regions are equally likely.
What datum is used?
WGS84 decimal degrees, the same datum used by GPS and most online maps.
Can I bias the sample to a region?
Yes. Set min/max latitude and longitude bounds and the tool restricts the sample to that bounding box, still uniformly within it.
Does it include altitude?
No. The tool returns surface coordinates only. Pair it with an elevation API if you need height above sea level.