# 3 word addresses

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2016-10-30

3-words, addresses, alley, bikxie, bikxie-pink, brazil, delhi, developer-platform, global-addressing, taipei, taiwan, tech, tech-platform, uncategorized, what3words

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![image](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/0ace052327f8d3f29f953cca2152baab.png)

When I was in undergrad, I spent a summer in Taipei. One of the things I remember about that summer was how difficult it was to locate building addresses. Sure, there was the whole language barrier thing, but I swear that some of those alleys (which I loved) didn’t follow a consistent numerical logic.

It turns out that a lot of the world is actually poorly addressed. Think about the favelas in Brazil. How are they addressed? (Not actually a rhetorical question; I’ve never been.)

A company out of the UK called [what3words](http://what3words.com/) is trying to solve this problem. What they have done is created a 3m x 3m grid of the entire world and assigned a 3 word address to each square. Apparently that translates into about 57 trillion squares.

This is similar to long / lat coordinates, except that 3 words are far more user friendly than a string of numbers. They are more easily remembered and more easily communicated to other people. The front door of the Starbucks in my neighborhood looks to be migrate.stunner.racing.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/b9d43694cb8375bf070bcaf858102407.jpg)

One service that has built upon the what3words platform is [a bike taxi service in Delhi](http://what3words.com/2016/10/bikxie/) that offers female drivers for female customers. It’s called [Bikxie Pink](http://www.bikxie.com/) and the 3 word addresses aim to solve the safety problem of inefficient pick-ups and drop-offs.

Even in places where addressing isn’t generally a problem, I could see what3words helping. Interesting platform.

_Images:_ [_what3words_](http://what3words.com/)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/3-word-addresses)*