Random Geographic Coordinate Generator
Generate a genuinely uniform random point anywhere on Earth's surface, plotted live on a world map — optionally restricted to dry land only.
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How the Random Geographic Coordinate Generator works
Picking a 'random' latitude and longitude sounds simple but has a classic trap: sampling latitude uniformly between −90° and 90° actually oversamples the poles, because lines of longitude squeeze closer together near the poles while the underlying surface area shrinks. To get a genuinely uniform random point on a sphere, Xrandom instead draws latitude as arcsin(2u−1) for a uniform random u — a standard technique from spherical geometry that correctly accounts for how surface area varies with latitude.
The world map is drawn from a real land/sea dataset: Earth's surface is divided into a 360×180 grid of one-degree cells, each marked land or ocean. When 'land only' is checked, Xrandom keeps redrawing a random point until it lands on a marked land cell — since roughly a third of Earth's surface is land, this typically takes only a couple of attempts.
The pin is plotted live on an equirectangular projection (the standard rectangular latitude/longitude map), with the equator and prime meridian marked as dashed reference lines, so you can see roughly where in the world each result falls at a glance.
How to use it
Frequently asked questions
Why not just pick latitude uniformly between -90 and 90?
That would bunch results up near the poles, since a given range of latitude covers less actual surface area near the poles than near the equator; Xrandom uses the arcsin transform specifically to avoid this bias and produce a truly uniform point on the sphere.
How accurate is the land/sea detection?
It uses a 360×180 one-degree-resolution land mask, so it's accurate to roughly 111km near the equator — precise enough to reliably distinguish continents and major islands from open ocean, though very small islands may occasionally be missed.
What's the difference between decimal and DMS format?
Decimal degrees (e.g. 40.7128°N) is the format used by most modern mapping software and GPS devices; degrees-minutes-seconds (e.g. 40 degrees 42 minutes 46.1 seconds N) is the traditional format still used in navigation and surveying.
Can I download the map image?
Yes, use the Download Map button to save the current map and pin as a PNG image.