Apply to questions that relate to Open Location Code (also known as Plus Code), geographical coordinate encoding and decoding.
The Open Location Code (OLC) is a geocode system for identifying an area anywhere on the Earth. It was developed at Google's Zürich engineering office, and released late October 2014. Location codes created by the OLC system are referred to as "plus codes", as their distinguishing attribute is that they include a "+" character.
Plus codes are derived from latitude and longitude coordinates, so they already exist everywhere. They are similar in length to a telephone number – 849VCWC8+R9, for example – but can often be shortened to only four or six digits when combined with a locality (CWC8+R9, Mountain View). Locations close to each other have similar codes. Full-length plus codes can be encoded or decoded offline. The character set avoids similar looking characters, to reduce confusion and errors, and avoids vowels to make it unlikely that a code spells existing words. Plus codes are not case-sensitive, and can therefore be easily exchanged over the phone.
Main advantages:
Can be used in places where there is no formal system to identify buildings, such as street names, house numbers, and post codes.
Can be calculated by small program.
Can be shortened.
Main disadvantages:
Hard to memorize.
Non intuitive.
No support for existing formal system to identify buildings, such as street names, house numbers, and post codes, except city and state.
Useful links:
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code
Landing page: https://plus.codes/
GitHub project page: https://github.com/google/open-location-code
Plus Codes API https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Plus-codes-API
