Random Point Generator Help

This is the documentation for the Random Point Generator, a free online tool that allows you to generate points at random locations on the surface of the earth. By default, the whole earth is selected as the area for generating random points, but you may also restrict the points to any circular or rectangular region that you choose.

Circular region

To generate random points in a circular region of a particular size and location:

1. Click on Circular region.
2. Click on Restrict area.
3. Type in the number of random points to be generated (2000 maximum).
4. You can either use the Search for place feature (see instructions below) or skip ahead to step 5 if you already know the latitude and longitude of the starting point.
5. type in the latitude and longitude of the starting point.
6. Type in a maximum distance which is the radius of a circle centered on the starting point.
7. Click on Get random point(s).
8. Click on See it on map to view the random points on a Google map.

Search for place

The calculator gives you a handy way to find the necessary latitude and longitude data through a fast search of millions of cities, towns and other places world wide using online geocoder services.

In the Search for place box type the desired city, country or state such as Paris, France or Atlanta, GA. For the US, Canada and other selected countries you can type in a street address such as 250 Ninth Ave, New York, NY. Click on Find it and the search results appear with the latitude and longitude automatically filled in the proper places for you. If more than one search result appears matching your search, select the one that you desire.

Rectangular region

To restrict the generated random points to a rectangular shaped region:

1. Click on Rectangular region.
2. Click on Restrict area.
3. Type in the number of random points to be generated (2000 maximum).
4. Type in the latitude of the North Limit and South limit of the rectangle.
5. Type in the longitude for the West limit and East limit of the rectangle.
6. Click on Get random point(s).
7. Click on See it on map to view the random points on a Google map.

Note: the west limit is always the left side of the rectangle and the east limit is always the right side of the rectangle regardless of longitude. This rectangle on the earth's surface is not a true rectangle in the true geometric sense because the four sides are curved latitude and longitude lines and all longitude lines converge at the North Pole and South Pole. However, this is often a convenient way to define a particular area on the earth's surface.

Display formats

• Text format is for ease of reading of the generated random points.
• Tab separators allows you to copy and paste the random points directly into a spreadsheet.
• Comma separators allows you to copy and paste the random points into an application that uses the CSV format.

Number of points

The calculator allows a maximum of 2000 random points to be generated at a time to avoid overloading browsers with too much data and processing time. If you don't have a fairly fast computer with ample memory it is suggested that you generate no more than 1000 points at a time. If you need more points than the maximum you can run the calculator more than once.

Keyboard shortcuts

These shortcut keys are available in Internet Explorer. For Mozilla Firefox, add the shift key to the key combinations listed below.

Key	Description
alt + p	Move to no. of points
alt + s	Move to search for place
alt + l	Move to latitude
alt + n	Move to longitude
alt + m	Move to max distance
alt + g	Get random point
alt + 0 (zero)	Reset
alt + r	Move to results