Google Maps is bringing Plus Codes, a tool that lets people share where they are without addresses, to 18 Middle East and African countries.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria are among the countries that will have Plus Codes now, which use latitude and longitude co-ordinates to display a short sequence of numbers and letters that provide a location when clicked on.
“Plus Codes are much shorter and easier to use than traditional global coordinates. They help people without addresses to get addresses easily, and they also enable people to easily share their locations through simple codes that can be written down if needed,” according to a Q&A section on Google Map’s website.
Plus Codes, which were launched in 2018, can help individuals find and navigate to businesses and other places more easily in the absence of formal addresses.
When saving a ‘Home’ location on Google Maps, users in the 18 countries will see a new “Use your current location” that uses their phone’s location to generate a Plus Code (if the location precision meets minimum thresholds) which they can then use as their Home address. Google has also added a section at the top of the ‘Saved’ tab to make it easier to retrieve, copy, and share these home addresses. The feature is currently available on Android only, with iOS following soon.
Google launched this feature in India earlier this year, and over 500,000 users in India have already found their homes address using Plus Codes.