What Three Words

 I often use What Three Words to give a location but not everyone is familiar with W3W so I thought I should explain.

There are lots of ways to give location - street addresses - postcode - map reference - longitude and latitude and now there is W3W.  Street addresses and postcodes are not always very specific and the middle of a field doesn't usually have an address whilst longitude and latitude & map references can be very specific but they aren't particularly user friendly.

W3W have divided the world into 3m square units and each 3m square has three  words to uniquely identify it.

///react.spaces.cups is the Market Cross in Chichester

///could.grants.palms is the i360 in Brighton

There is a free app which can be downloaded to phones which enable you to find out where in the world the three words locate to or the reverse, give the three words for a specific location or your current location.   There is also the W3W website.

Emergency services are starting to use W3W and it can be invaluable if they need to find a more obscure location.  When my car broke down last week I was able to use W3W to give my location to the recovery company.

Everyone should have this app on their phone - you've no idea when it could be useful and if you break a leg whilst out walking in the wilds of Sussex (and please don't!) it is a great way to give your location to 999.

If I haven't explained this very well then see the BBC News explain it.