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Map guides, step by step

Short, checked answers to what people search for most: how to get coordinates from Google Maps, measure a lot in acres, draw a radius or find out what county you’re in. Every guide takes you to the tool already set up for your case.

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How to get coordinates from Google Maps On a computer, right-click the map: the coordinates are the first line of the menu, and one click copies them. On a phone, touch and hold the spot: they show up in the search box on Android and in the place sheet on iPhone. Read the guide How to find the elevation of any place The most reliable way is to read it from a terrain model, like the USGS one, not from your phone’s GPS. Google Maps only shows it as contour lines in the Terrain layer; Google Earth gives the elevation of the spot under your cursor; Mapsfera gives you the number in feet with one tap. Read the guide How to print a blank map and use it in class Pick the map, the version (blank, numbered, labeled or with capitals) and the paper size, then press “Print” or “Download PDF”. To keep it from getting cut off, print at 100% with no fit-to-page. Below are seven classroom activities and worksheets that come with an answer key. Read the guide

Google Maps, step by step

Coordinates, measuring, UTM and radius circles: what Google Maps does, what it doesn’t, and how to fill the gap.

Elevation and places

How high a place is, and which county, city and ZIP code it falls in.

Maps for the classroom

Printable blank maps and how to get the most out of them in class.

How we write these guides

We check every Google Maps step against Google’s official help and the live site on the day we publish or update a guide, and we show that date. When Google changes a menu, the guide gets updated.

Examples use real numbers, worked out with the same math as the Mapsfera tools and with official data (USGS, Census, IGN).

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