It’s easy to find the GPS coordinates for Domaine O’Vineyards ( 43.259622, 2.340387 ) and I want to write a how to for other vineyard and winery owners who want to post their latitude and longitude online.
If you own a GPS navigation system and you’re standing on your property, you can use the nav system to find your GPS coordinates. However, instructions vary based on the machine you have. Instead, I’m going to walk through how you can use Google Maps to find your longitude and latitude.
Why GPS coordinates are important
Wineries and vineyards typically have unusual addresses which might be hard to find on common sat nav systems or mapping websites. To make sure that your guest can find you, think about finding your exact GPS coordinates and posting them on your site along with your address and phone number.
Using Google Maps to find Lat and Long
Step 1 – Go to google maps
Go to http://maps.google.com/maps
Step 2 – Find your approximate location
Type the address of your vineyard or winery into the search bar and click on “Search Maps”.
As you can see from the screenshot, google maps will find the address or something close to it on their map. If perchance Google has found your exact location, you can skip to step 4. Otherwise, we’ll go to step 3 in order to pinpoint the exact location of the vineyard.
Step 3 – Pinpoint your exact location
Try to use the satellite images on google maps to find the exact location of your vineyard or winery. When you find the exact location, right click on it (click on it with the right mouse button). A menu should pop up. Left click (click normally with the left button) on the “center map here” option.
This will recenter the map to the exact location of your vineyard or winery. Now we can get the exact GPS coordinates.
Step 4 – Getting your latitude and longitude
If you look in the top right corner of the map, there are buttons that say “Print” “Send” and “Link”. Click on “Link”.
Copy the text that is highlighted. This URL address will allow you to link directly to the map you’re looking at which is centered on your winery or vineyard. It will also contain the GPS coordinates of your vineyard! To copy text, go to the edit menu and select “copy”. This will copy the highlighted text into the computer’s memory. Now go into any text document like word or an email platform and select paste from the edit menu. This should paste the URL address into your text document.
It will look something like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+Villemoustaussou,+France&aq=1&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.641855,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+11620
+Villemoustaussou,+Aude,+Languedoc-Roussillon,+France&ll=43.259815,2.340689&spn=0.011001,0.01929&t=h&z=16
The important part is the bit toward the end after “ll=”
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+Villemoustaussou,+France&aq=1&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.641855,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+11620
+Villemoustaussou,+Aude,+Languedoc-Roussillon,+France&ll=43.259815,2.340689&spn=0.011001,0.01929&t=h&z=16
See the bit I put in bold? It’s your GPS coordinates. The first number is your latitude and the second number (after the comma) is your longitude. In this case, my GPS coordinates are 43.259812 2.340689
Ta da! The most observant of you might notice that the latitude and longitude are actually different than the ones I mentioned on my contact page and at the top of this page. The truth is the first four digits are what matter the most. The last few get more and more specific. Make sure you’re close enough to be useful to your visitors! Don’t get caught up in pinpointing yourself to the nearest inch or centimeter.
