Plus Codes is an open source service to provide free digital addresses to any place on Earth, including sites where there are no accurate official addresses. Instead of sharing street and district names, Plus Codes are based on latitude and longitude, and display short sequences of numbers and letters to provide highly accurate location and access.
Since its launch in 2018, Plus Codes has been adopted by a wide range of NGOs, including Addressing the Unaddressed and Shelter Associates, as well as previous governments such as in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the service caters to millions of people to access Required addresses, and makes it easy to find and reach companies.
In addition to the company's efforts to support communities, the Google team is committed to enabling users to directly use Plus Codes to meet their everyday needs. For this purpose, Google announced the launch of the latest Plus Codes service on Google Maps in 18 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, Algeria and others.
Plus Code addresses can be used with ease and simplicity to receive packages and food orders, or send home location to friends and family, without having to worry about sharing an approximate location with an important landmark, or relying on potentially ambiguous voice instructions. When a Home location is saved to Google Maps, users from 18 countries will be able to see a new "Use Your Current Location" icon that uses the phone's location to issue a Plus Code address (if the location accuracy meets the minimum requirement), to be used as their home addresses. The service is currently available on Android devices only, and will be available on iOS devices soon.
How the feature works:
Google launched this feature in India earlier this year, and we're glad Plus Codes has already helped over 500,000 users in India find the titles they're looking for so far.
The company seeks to expand into more diverse places (away from home and the office), while continuing to seek opportunities to work with delivery companies, e-commerce and logistics, to reach more people around the world.