Map Navigation

The map fills the middle of the screen. This page is about getting around it: moving, zooming, turning, and the readouts that tell you where you are.

The buttons on the map

Four small bars sit on the map itself, plus the strip underneath it

Where	What is in it
Top left	Zoom in and zoom out. Always there.
Along the top	Full extent, and the back and forward arrows through your recent views. On a phone this bar carries the search and table buttons instead.
Top right	Legend, fullscreen, and the compass.
Bottom right	The layers button (phones only) and the i, which shows who the data belongs to.
Under the map	Snapshot, your location, coordinates, calculator, and the readouts.

Moving around

The map answers to the gestures you would expect

With a mouse

Gesture	What happens
Drag	Moves the map. Grab anywhere and pull.
Scroll	Zooms in and out.
Double-click	Zooms in one level on the spot you clicked.
Shift + drag	Draws a box and zooms to exactly that box.
Alt + Shift + drag	Turns the map.

On a touch screen

Gesture	What happens
One finger	Drag to move the map.
Two fingers apart	Zoom in. Together zooms out.
Two fingers twisted	Turns the map.
Double-tap	Zooms in one level.

The map turned and you did not mean to

Alt + Shift + drag, or a twist of two fingers, rotates the map. Nothing is broken. The compass at the top right always points north, and clicking it puts north back at the top of the screen.

Zooming

Five ways in, all doing the same job

Way	What it does
The scroll wheel	Roll forward to go in, back to go out.
Double-click	In one level, on the spot you clicked.
The + and - buttons	One level at a time, centred on the middle of the view.
Shift + drag	Draws a box and fills the screen with it. The quickest way to zoom to one street.
Full extent	The button in the bar along the top zooms all the way out.

Two small things worth knowing:

• The wheel zooms smoothly, not in whole steps, so you can stop between two zoom levels. The buttons and double-click move a whole level at a time.
• Holding Shift or Ctrl while you double-click does not zoom, because those keys mean "add to the selection". See Feature Selection.

Back and forward through your views

The map remembers where you have been

Every time you pan or zoom, the view you left is remembered. The two arrows in the bar along the top step you back and forward through them, the way a browser moves through pages.

An arrow is greyed out when there is nothing in that direction. Both arrows are hidden on small screens.

Fullscreen

The fullscreen button at the top right makes the map fill the whole screen, hiding everything else. Press it again, or press Escape, to come back.

The right-click menu

Everything here is about the exact point you clicked

Item	What it does
Center Map Here	Slides the map so the point you clicked sits in the middle. The zoom does not change.
Download View as PNG	Saves a picture of the map exactly as it looks now.
Copy Coordinates to Clipboard (Lat,Lon)	Puts that point's latitude and longitude on your clipboard, ready to paste.
Zoom to full extent	Goes back to the starting view your administrator set up.
Zoom In / Zoom Out	One level, centred on the point you clicked rather than the middle of the screen.

Two different "full extent"

The menu item goes to the starting view your administrator configured. The button in the bar along the top instead zooms all the way out to the whole map. If your account is limited to an area, it stops at that area.

The strip under the map

Four buttons, then three readouts

Button	What it does
Snapshot	Downloads a picture of the map as it looks now.
Your location	Switches on tracking.
Zoom to coordinates	Opens a box where you type a latitude and longitude.
GIS calculator	Trigonometry in degrees, conversions between decimal degrees and degrees-minutes-seconds, and the everyday sums.

Readout	What it shows
Lat/Lon	Where your mouse is, right now. Hidden on a phone.
Scale	The scale and the zoom level, for example 1:2,000 | Zoom: 17.
Units	Metric or Imperial, whichever your account is set to.

Your location

The location button does not just centre the map once. It tracks you: a marker follows you, with a circle around it showing how sure the browser is of the position. Press it again to stop.

Your browser asks permission the first time, and it will refuse outright on an insecure connection. Accuracy depends entirely on the device: a phone with GPS gets within metres, a desktop working from its network address can be out by kilometres. That is what the circle is telling you.

Zoom to coordinates

Either format, and three buttons

Type a position and go straight there. Two formats:

• Dec Deg (DD) - one number each for latitude and longitude, for example -25.7461 and 28.1881.
• Deg, Min, Sec (DMS) - degrees, minutes and seconds in separate boxes, with N/S and E/W beside them.

Switch between the two at any time and the numbers convert themselves.

Button	What it does
Copy	Puts the coordinates you have typed on the clipboard.
Follow	Keeps the marker under your mouse as you move it, so you can read positions straight off the map.
Focus	Drops the marker and moves the map to it.

The legend

It lists what is being drawn, not what is in your workspace

The legend button at the top right opens a panel showing the symbols and colours for what is on the map.

A layer is listed only while it has something to draw. If none of its symbols apply at this zoom level, or nothing of it falls inside the part of the map you are looking at, it is left out until you move back into range. The legend button itself stays hidden until at least one visible layer has a legend to show.

It is not the same as the layer list

The Layers panel shows everything in your workspace whether it is drawing or not. The legend shows only the symbols on the map in front of you, which is why the two lists rarely match exactly.

If your account is limited to an area

Some accounts are set up so that only one area is theirs to work in. When that is the case:

• everything outside the area is covered by a soft mask, so you can see where your boundary is;
• depending on the setting, the map may refuse to pan or zoom past it at all;
• full extent stops at that area rather than zooming out to the whole world.

None of that is a fault, and there is nothing to switch off. If you need a wider area, ask your administrator.

If something looks wrong

What you see	What it means
The map is at an angle	It has been rotated. Click the compass at the top right to put north back at the top.
Scrolling zooms the page instead of the map	Your pointer is off the map. Move it over the map and try again.
Double-clicking selects instead of zooming	You are holding Shift or Ctrl. Those are the selection keys.
Double-clicking does nothing for a moment	The map is still looking up what you clicked on. It works again as soon as that finishes.
The back and forward arrows are missing	They are hidden on small screens.
The legend button is missing	Nothing visible has a legend to show at the moment.
A layer vanished from the legend	It has nothing to draw at this zoom or in this part of the map. It comes back.
The location button does nothing	Your browser has refused or has not been asked. Check the permission prompt, and note it will not work at all on an insecure connection.
Your location is wildly wrong	The device is guessing from the network rather than from GPS. The circle around the marker shows how rough the guess is.
The map will not pan any further	Your account is limited to an area.
Lat/Lon has disappeared	It is hidden on narrow screens to make room.

See also

• Search - finding a place or a record by name
• Feature Selection - clicking features, and what Shift and Ctrl do
• Map Tools - measuring, the magnifier, Street View, printing
• Layer Control - what is drawn, in what order
• Bookmarks - saving a view you want to come back to
• Keyboard Shortcuts - the full list