www.makaney.net
Copyright (C) 2011 Makaney Code by Ziyad S. Al-Salloum <zss@zss.net>

Makaney Code is a non profit project, you are free to copy, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of Makaney Code, and to permit persons to whom Makaney Code is furnished to do so as long as in your application you refer to the code as "Makaney Code" or "MKC".

Makaney code is a human-friendly alphanumeric representation (like postal or zip codes) of the geographic latitude and longitude coordinates. Using Makaney code helps easily identify places on earth with an easy to remember code. That's becomes very useful especially in countries that do not implement a practical postal code system. In such countries people tend to describe their locations using directions, which is not always straightforward, waste valuable time, and results in many inconveniences especially when an ambulance needs to reach a certain location as soon as possible.

Examples of Makaney Code Uses:

• Addresses:
  

  King Saud University, Admission Office      Riyadh, Saudi Arabia MKC: TLU5+MI2A	9th Floor, Apartment # 902     Jeddah, Saudi Arabia MKC: TASF+K7NP
  Singing Sand Dunes     Qatar, MKC: TU6P+NKBD	El-tahrir Square     Cairo, Egypt MKC: CW7M+CE5M
  University of Ibadan     Ibadan, Nigeria, MKC: OOML+BOYZ	Tristan Island Settlement, Saint Helena MKC: -KK36-2GH6

• Social networks, verbal, or even handwritten communications:
  
  • Please, send a taxi to SUI8+4QPS, thanks.
  • We need an ambulance @ PWA8+8CLQ (Slums in India).
  • If you are on campus don't forget to grab a bite from the apple tree NKSU-PP7.
  • Please deliver to CMOK+CE95 apartment # 1, thank you.
  • Due to car accident the intersection @ OFCO+OO8U is currently blocked, will keep you updated.
• Identify locations in places with many people, such as malls, concerts, football stadiums, or humanitarian camps.
• Many other uses.

The code can be divided into four parts, as described below:

where,
P1: The direction of the latitude. It can be either South (minus sign) or North (no sign).
P2: The latitude coordinate, which can range from one letter or number starting from A (i.e. 0) up to four alphanumeric letters (3BNY = 90.0000).
P3: The direction of the longitude, which can be East (plus sign) or West (minus sign).
P4: The longitude, which can range from one letter or number starting from A (i.e. 0) up to five alphanumeric letters (BFO7X = 180.0000).

Example:

P1 and P3 are responsible of reflecting the direction of the coordinates in regard to the Equator and the Prime Meridian. They can be described as follows:

The alphabets have been ordered to favour a more friendly choice of words in some areas that experience high population density and -- in the same time -- lacks a practical postal code system (such as pilgrimage areas). We exclude 0, 1, and V as they usually mistaken with O, I, and U, giving a more human friendly code.

The idea is not to produce a short code only, but a code that is short and easy to read, write, speak, and remember. Base36 will be a bit confusing (i.e. 0 or O, I or 1) and Base64 is not human friendly.

Converting the Makaney Code to latitude and longitude is simple and straightforward. Let us take the following code as an example: THUN+MW9K

Mathematically the code can be converted using the following formula

Q: How to convert latitude and longitude to Makaney Code?

1) Multiply the geographic coordinate by 10000 then round it.

2) Divide the result by 33 and map the reminder to its corresponding symbol in the Makaney Code alphabets table.

Latitude: round(24.4972618778735*10000) = 244973

Longitude: round(44.385991651520506*10000) = 443860

Therefore, the Makaney Code for 24.4972618778735, 44.385991651520506 is: THUN+MW9K

Below is a simple javascript that encode/decode the Makaney Code:

// www.makaney.net 
// Sept. 9 2011 version 0.2 (Beta)
// Copyright (C) 2011 Makaney Code by Ziyad S. Al-Salloum <zss@zss.net>
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of Makaney Code, 
// to deal in Makaney Code without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, 
// copy, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies, and to permit persons
// to whom Makaney Code is furnished to do so, subject to the following condition:
//
// In your application you refer to the code as "Makaney Code" or "MKC"
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//
//
// Description (JavaScript):
// decimalToBase33(Math.round([latitude or longitude]*10000)) return Makaney Code of the coordinate.
// Example:
// Convert Latitude and longitude (24.4973, 44.38599999999997) to Makaney Code:
// 	decimalToBase33(Math.round(24.4973*10000)); // gives THUN
// 	decimalToBase33(Math.round(44.38599999999997*10000)); // gives MW9K 
// 	so Latitude and longitude (24.4973, 44.38599999999997) becomes THUN+MW9K
// Convert Makaney Code to Latitude and longitude:
//	makaneyToLatLon(Makaney Code) returns Latitude and longitude up to X digits.
//	makaneyToLatLon("THUN+MW9K") // gives 24.4973, 44.3860

var zbase33 = "abo2zptscjkwmgnxqfd984ery3h5l76ui";
var mbase = 33;

function base33ToDecimal (Str) {
	Sign = "";
	if (Str.charAt(0) == "-") {
		Sign = "-";
		Str = Str.substring(1);
	}
	else if (Str.charAt(0) == "+") Str = Str.substring(1);
	Str = Str.toLowerCase();
	var sum = 0;
	for (var i=0; i < Str.length; i++)
		sum += zbase33.indexOf(Str.charAt((Str.length - 1) - i)) * Math.pow(mbase, i);
	return Sign+sum;
}

function decimalToBase33 (N) {
	
	if (N == 0) {return "A"}
	X = Math.abs(N)
	var code = "";
	while (X > 0) {
		code = zbase33.charAt(X%mbase) + code;
		X = Math.floor(X/mbase);
	}
	return ((N<0) ? "-"+code : code);
}

function makaneyToLatLon (Str) {

	pos = Str.indexOf("+");
		
	if (pos != -1) lon = base33ToDecimal(Str.substring(pos))/10000;
	else {
		pos = Str.lastIndexOf("-");
		lon = base33ToDecimal(Str.substring(pos))/10000;
	}

	lat = base33ToDecimal(Str.substring(0, pos))/10000;
	
	return lat + "," + lon;
}