How to draw a polygon on a map
- Find your area. Type an address, city or landmark into the search box on the map and press Enter, or use the location button to jump to where you are. For fields, roofs and property lines, switch to satellite imagery with the layers button — it is much easier to trace what you can see.
- Click the corners. The Polygon tool is active when the page opens. Click (or tap) each corner of the area. While you draw, the bar at the bottom of the map shows the area and perimeter so far, and Undo point removes the last corner.
- Close the shape. Click the first point again, press Enter, or press Finish. The polygon is selected and its measurements appear in the panel.
Need a regular shape? Rectangle takes two clicks (opposite corners) and Circle takes a centre and a radius. GeoJSON has no circle type, so circles are saved as smooth 64-point polygons that every GIS program understands. Line draws routes and distances, and Marker places points — keep clicking to drop several, then press Done.
Editing shapes
Click any shape to select it. Then you can:
- Reshape it by dragging a vertex.
- Add a vertex by dragging one of the small midpoint handles between two corners.
- Delete a vertex with a right-click, or a long-press on a phone or tablet.
- Move the whole shape by dragging it.
- Cut a hole (or bite a piece out) with the Cut tool — useful for a pond inside a park or a building inside a lot.
Every change can be undone and redone (Ctrl/⌘+Z and Ctrl/⌘+Shift+Z), including imports and deletions. In the panel you can give each shape a name, a description, a colour and any other properties you need, such as an ID or a price zone. Your map is autosaved in your browser, so it is still there when you come back.
Measuring area and distance
Areas, perimeters and lengths are geodesic: they are calculated on the curved surface of the Earth rather than on the flat map, so a field in Canada and a field in Kenya are measured equally well. Switch between metric (m², hectares, km², m, km) and imperial (ft², acres, square miles, ft, mi) at the bottom of the panel, where the total area of all shapes is shown too. Results are as accurate as your tracing — zoom in and use satellite view for the best numbers. For legal boundaries, rely on a surveyor or the official land registry.
Exporting GeoJSON, KML, Shapefile and WKT
Open Export to download or copy everything on the map — or only the selected shape:
- GeoJSON – a standard FeatureCollection for web maps (Leaflet, Mapbox, OpenLayers, the Google Maps and HERE JavaScript APIs), databases and APIs.
- KML – for Google Earth and Google My Maps, with names, descriptions and colours.
- Shapefile (.zip) – for QGIS, ArcGIS and other desktop GIS, with one layer each for points, lines and polygons.
- WKT – Well-Known Text for PostGIS, SQL Server, MySQL or BigQuery.
- Lat, lng list – plain coordinates, one corner per line.
You can choose the coordinate precision: six decimals (about 10 cm) is plenty for almost everything and keeps files small. Share creates a link that contains the map itself (compressed), so the person you send it to sees exactly your shapes — nothing is stored on a server.
Longitude first: coordinate order in GeoJSON
GeoJSON always writes positions as [longitude, latitude]. Google Maps and most people say "latitude, longitude", so the two are easy to mix up — a point meant for New York then lands near Antarctica. This tool always writes the correct GeoJSON order, the Copy lat, lng button gives you the everyday order, and the GeoJSON tab warns you when imported coordinates look swapped.
Importing and converting existing data
Press Import, drop files onto the map, or paste text. The editor reads GeoJSON (any geometry, including MultiPolygons, GeometryCollections and holes), KML and KMZ, GPX tracks and waypoints, zipped Shapefiles (reprojected to WGS84 using the .prj file) and WKT. If your map already has shapes, you choose whether to add the new data or replace it. The GeoJSON tab shows the whole map as editable text: fix something by hand, press Apply to map, and any errors are listed with their exact location.
What people use it for
- Delivery zones and service areas – draw the area you serve and load the GeoJSON into your app's point-in-polygon check.
- Geofences – create the polygons your fleet, mobile app or IoT platform needs.
- Property and land boundaries – estimate the size of a lot, farm field or roof before a quote.
- Sales territories and planning maps – colour-code regions and share them with a link.
- Test data – quickly produce valid GeoJSON or WKT for development and demos.