# Locations and site plans

> Place and edit locations on the map, switch coordinate systems, group them, and lay out site plans.

Your **locations** are the heart of the map. This page covers placing and editing
them, the coordinate systems they carry, grouping them, and laying out **site
plans**. These are available on every plan.

## Locations

Open the **Locations** layer to see your locations as markers. You can:

- **add, move and edit** locations directly on the map,
- read each location's coordinates in both **WGS84** (latitude / longitude) and
  the project's grid (for example **OSGB36**, British National Grid), shown as
  you work. A position outside the project's grid is refused, with a message,
  rather than saved with meaningless numbers,
- style markers by **location type**, or one location at a time, under
  **Styles**. A marker's symbol menu shows the marker as the map draws it.
  **Default** (the first choice) shows what it gets from its location type,
  the type's icon or a pin, and picking it removes a symbol set at that level.

### Labels

Each location's label sits above its marker. To tidy them, open the
**Locations** panel's **Display** tab:

- **Move labels**: turn it on, then drag any label on the map to where you want
  it. A label moved away from its marker gets a dashed line back to it. You can
  also drag the label of the location chosen on the **Position** tab, or type
  its offset there.
- **Auto-arrange labels** moves labels that overlap a marker or another label to
  the nearest free space around their own marker: above, below, beside or at a
  corner. Labels that are clear stay where they are. It works for the zoom
  you are at, so run it again after zooming, and drag any it gets wrong.

<Callout type="tip" title="Map placement">
  Where a location has no survey coordinates, give it an internal map position from
  the [table editor](/manage/table-editor) (the **Map placement** column on the
  Locations table) so it still appears on the map.
</Callout>

## Coordinate systems

A project's **coordinate system** says which grid its eastings and northings are
in. The configuration sets the default for
its projects, and any [project](/manage/projects#create-a-project) can choose its
own, so a firm working in the UK and Slovenia can keep both side by side.

GIMLabs supports:

- **WGS84** (latitude and longitude), worldwide.
- **OSGB36** (British National Grid) for Great Britain.
- The national grids of **Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland,
  France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland** (and Northern Ireland), **Latvia,
  Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
  Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden** and **Switzerland**, for example D96/TM
  (EPSG:3794) in Slovenia or Lambert-93 (EPSG:2154) in France.
- **ETRS89 / UTM** zones 28N to 38N for anywhere else in Europe, such as UTM 32N
  or 33N for Germany, Denmark, Norway or Italy.

Pick a grid by searching for the country, the grid's name or its EPSG code. The
[coordinate systems reference](/manage/map/coordinate-systems) lists every grid
with its EPSG code.
GIMLabs converts between the project's grid and latitude/longitude to plot
locations on the [map](/manage/map), and refuses a position that falls outside
the grid's country rather than guessing.

<Callout type="note" title="Older national datums">
  Grids on a modern European datum (ETRS89), such as D96/TM, convert exactly.
  Older datums such as Slovenia's D48/GK, Austria's MGI or Czechia's S-JTSK use
  the published datum shift, which is good to about a metre: plenty for the map,
  but not a survey-grade conversion.
</Callout>

## Location groups

The **Location Groups** layer shows your
[location groups](/manage/location-groups) on the map, so you can see and work with
a defined set of locations together.

## Site plans

The **Site Plans** layer lets you lay out **site plans** - create, position and
edit them on the map, with a parameters dialog to set them up. Site plans link to
the project so they stay in step with your data.