Bounding Box Tool — Draw, Rotate and Export a Boundary Box
Click and drag on the map to draw a bounding box, or type exact North / South / East / West coordinates. Rotate the box to any angle, check its corner coordinates in WGS84, UTM or Web Mercator, and download it as GeoJSON or as a plain-text coordinate list — fast, in your browser, with no extra program needed. Open in full screen ↗
A bounding box, also called a boundary box, is the smallest rectangle that fully contains an area, a route, or a set of points. In GIS and mapping work, it is usually described by four numbers: North, South, East and West — or, in other words, the highest latitude, the lowest latitude, the highest longitude and the lowest longitude that the rectangle reaches. You may also see it called a 2D bounding box, an extent, or an envelope — all of these words describe the same idea: a simple rectangular outline that marks where an area starts and ends.
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Two Ways to Create Your Bounding Box
Build your bounding box with whichever method fits your work best:
Draw on the map: Click "Draw Bounding Box", then click and drag on the map from one corner to the opposite corner. Release the mouse button to finish — an axis-aligned rectangle appears instantly, and its coordinates fill in below.
Type exact coordinates: Enter North, South, East and West values directly into the sidebar fields and click "Set Box From Coordinates". This is the fastest way to recreate a bounding box you already have written down, or one copied from another tool or API.
Rotating Your Bounding Box
Most bounding boxes are drawn lined up with North, but a real area of interest — a field, a runway, a survey strip, a building footprint — is often angled instead. Drag the Rotation slider to turn your box clockwise around its own center, from -180° to 180°, and watch the shape and its corner coordinates update instantly. This is especially useful for drone and aerial survey planning, where flight lines are flown along the angle of the field or site, not strictly North-South.
Choosing a Coordinate System
The sidebar shows your box's four corner coordinates in the coordinate system you pick, so you can copy numbers straight into the format your next tool expects:
WGS84 (Latitude / Longitude): the standard system used by GPS, GeoJSON, and almost every web map. Coordinates are shown in decimal degrees.
UTM (Easting / Northing): a metric grid system split into numbered zones. The tool works out the correct UTM zone automatically from your box's center point, and shows coordinates in meters.
Web Mercator (X / Y): the projection used internally by most web map tiles (EPSG:3857). Coordinates are shown in meters, useful when working with tile-based mapping systems.
Downloading Your Bounding Box
Two export options are always ready in the sidebar once you have a box:
Download GeoJSON: saves your box as a GeoJSON polygon feature in WGS84 (the coordinate system the GeoJSON standard requires), including its rotation angle, width, height and area as properties.
Download Coordinates (.txt): saves a plain-text file listing all four corners in the coordinate system you currently have selected, along with the rotation angle, width, height and area.
The GeoJSON file opens without problems in Leaflet, Mapbox GL JS, QGIS and ArcGIS, and works directly as an area-of-interest (AOI) parameter for many satellite imagery and geospatial APIs.
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Step by Step
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Step 1
Open the tool
The map opens on a world view with no box yet. The toolbar at the top has Draw Bounding Box, Sample Box and a basemap switch. The sidebar holds coordinate entry, rotation, coordinate system, and export.
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Step 2
Draw or type your box
Click "Draw Bounding Box" and drag across the map, or type North, South, East and West values and click "Set Box From Coordinates".
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Step 3
Check the box appears
An axis-aligned rectangle appears on the map, and the coordinate fields and corner list update to match it.
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Step 4
Rotate it if you need to
Drag the Rotation slider to angle the box clockwise around its center — useful for surveys, fields, or sites that are not aligned North-South.
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Step 5
Pick a coordinate system
Choose WGS84, UTM, or Web Mercator from the dropdown to see the box's four corners in that system.
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Step 6
Read the box info
The sidebar shows the width, height and area of your box, updating live as you rotate or resize it.
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Step 7
Adjust the color if you like
Click the color box to change how the bounding box is drawn on the map.
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Step 8
Download GeoJSON
Click "Download GeoJSON" to save the box as a standard GeoJSON polygon, ready for any GIS tool or API.
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Step 9
Or download the coordinate list
Click "Download Coordinates (.txt)" to save a plain-text file with all four corners in your chosen coordinate system.
Real-World Use Cases
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Satellite and Aerial Imagery Ordering
Satellite imagery providers and tasking platforms ask for a bounding box as the area of interest (AOI) before capturing or delivering new imagery — draw the area once and copy the coordinates straight into the order form.
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Geospatial API Queries
Many mapping and data APIs — from OpenStreetMap's Overpass API to weather, biodiversity and open-data services — accept a bbox parameter of South, West, North, East. Draw the area you need and copy the numbers directly.
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Drone and Aerial Survey Planning
Drone pilots and surveyors define a rotated bounding box that lines up with a field, runway or site boundary, instead of a North-South rectangle that wastes flight time covering extra ground.
🖨️
Map Print and Export Layout
Cartographers and report writers define the exact rectangular extent they want to print or export, then use the coordinates to set up a consistent map layout every time.
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Study Area Definition for Research
Researchers and environmental scientists mark out the exact rectangular study area for a project, then share the bounding box coordinates with collaborators so everyone works from the same extent.
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Spatial Database Queries
Developers testing spatial queries in PostGIS, MongoDB, or similar databases use a bounding box's corner coordinates to build envelope filters like ST_MakeEnvelope, without doing the math by hand.
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Web Map and Tile Service Configuration
Developers setting up a WMS, WFS, or custom tile service need to define the bounding box (extent) that the service should cover, in the exact coordinate system the service expects.
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Disaster Response and Situational Reports
Emergency planners quickly draw a bounding box around an affected area to define a simple envelope for briefings, data requests, or coordination with other agencies.
