What is what3words? The three-word address, explained.

what3words is an app and system that gives every spot on earth a simple address made of three words. It splits the whole world into a grid of small squares, each one 3 meters across, and gives every square its own three words, like ///spoken.friday.beast. Tell someone those three words and they land on that exact square. No street address, no map, no coordinates.

People look it up because a street address does not always work. A field has no number. A trail has no sign. A long stretch of highway looks the same for miles. Three words give that spot a name anyone can find. Here is how it works, how to get your own, and when to use it, all in plain terms.

What is what3words?

Picture the whole world covered in a giant grid, like graph paper laid over a map. Every square in that grid is small, just 3 meters by 3 meters, about the size of a parking spot. There are roughly 57 trillion of them, enough to cover every part of the planet, water included.

Each square gets three random words from the dictionary, and those words never change. So your exact spot might be ///spoken.friday.beast. Anyone with the what3words app can type those three words and go straight to your square. They do not need your street, your city, or your coordinates.

One thing to know: what3words is owned by a company. It is not free for anyone to build on, the way latitude and longitude or the military grid are. The list of words and the map behind them belong to that company. You are trading a little independence for words that are far easier to say than a string of numbers.

How a three-word address works

The grid never moves, and each square keeps the same three words forever. A few smart choices make it work in real life:

• You write it with three slashes in front, like ///filled.count.soap. The slashes are just a flag that says "this is a what3words address," so people do not mistake it for three random words in a sentence.
• Words that sound alike are kept far apart. If two addresses could be mixed up by ear, what3words puts them on opposite sides of the world on purpose. So if you say a word wrong, you end up somewhere obviously far away, not one street over. That makes mistakes easy to catch.
• It works in many languages. Each language has its own set of words, so the same square can be given in English, Spanish, and more.

The result is an address short enough to say in one breath that still points to a spot the size of a parking space. A street address and a dropped map pin cannot do that.

How to find and share your three words

The basic way is simple. Download the free what3words app, open it, and it shows the three words for the square you are standing in. To share your spot, read those three words out loud or send them in a text. The other person types them into their app and it takes them straight to you.

The catch in the field is having to open one more app at the worst possible moment. LOC8 shows your three-word address, powered by what3words, on the same screen as your full street address, nearest cross street, and coordinates. One glance gives you every way to say where you are: the address for a delivery, the cross street for dispatch, the coordinates for a rescue crew, and the three words for a friend with a phone. Tap to share them, or read them off the screen.

A three-word address vs an address or coordinates

None of these replace the others. Each one is best in a different situation:

• A street address is what people and maps expect, but it is useless where there is no number on a building: a field, an empty lot, a long driveway, a trail.
• Coordinates or the MGRS grid are just numbers. They work anywhere and belong to no company, so anyone can use them. The downside is they are long to read, and one wrong digit sends help to the wrong place. Here is how the MGRS grid works.
• A three-word address is the easiest to say and the hardest to get wrong, and it needs no street number. The downside is it belongs to one company, so the other person needs the what3words app to use it.

Simple rule: use the street address when there is one, use coordinates or a grid when you are talking to dispatch or a helicopter, and use three words when you just need to put a regular person on your spot fast. The reason to know your exact location in all of these forms is having the right one ready for whoever you are talking to.

Where a three-word address really helps

The clearest case is someone who has no idea where they are. A hiker off the trail. A driver broken down on a dark road. A person who can describe what they see but cannot name the place. Three words turn "somewhere around here" into one exact square, and they are short enough to say over the phone when you are rattled.

That is why emergency services use it, and it is the same reason it helps on the job. A friend trying to find you at a packed festival, a delivery driver looking for a back entrance, an officer who came over a fence into a backyard they have never seen: three words said once gets everyone to the same 3-meter square. It is not the tool for every moment, but when there is no address to read and no time to spell out numbers, nothing is faster.

Common questions

What is what3words?

what3words is a system that gives every 3-meter square on earth a unique address made of three words, like ///spoken.friday.beast. It divides the whole globe into about 57 trillion squares so any spot can be named and shared without a street address or coordinates.

How does a three-word address work?

The globe is split into a fixed grid of 3-meter squares, and each square is permanently assigned three dictionary words. You share the three words, and anyone using the what3words system enters them to land on that exact square. Similar-sounding combinations are placed far apart on purpose, so a small mistake sends you somewhere obviously wrong rather than one street over.

How do I find my what3words address?

Open the free what3words app or website and your three words appear for wherever you are. A location app like LOC8 also shows your current three-word address, powered by what3words, next to your full street address, nearest cross street, and coordinates, so you do not need a separate app open in the field.

What does the /// in front of the words mean?

The three slashes mark the three words as a what3words address, so ///filled.count.soap reads as a location and not just three ordinary words in a sentence. The words themselves are the address; the slashes are just the flag in front of them.

Is a three-word address the same as GPS coordinates?

They point to the same kind of spot but in different forms. Coordinates and the MGRS grid are open standards made of numbers that work anywhere with no company behind them. A three-word address is a proprietary system that swaps the numbers for three words that are easier to say, at the cost of needing the what3words system to decode them.

Why do emergency services use what3words?

Because callers often cannot give a usable street address. Three words pin a caller to a 3-meter square even in a field, on a trail, or on an unmarked road, and they are short enough to say over the phone under stress. It closes the gap between a rough description and an exact location.

Can I use what3words offline?

The official what3words app can convert a location to three words offline, since the system is stored on the device. In LOC8, your coordinates, compass, and saved pins work with no signal, and the three-word address fills in the moment you reconnect, because it is looked up from your position.