Slippy tile bounding box

Use it free in the browser for debug sessions and teaching demos, or call the API at $0.002 per successful request when pipelines need reproducible tile envelopes.

What a slippy tile bounding box is and what the response contains

The response echoes the validated integers x, y, and z, a zoom alias, the grid size n equals two to the z, a bbox object with min_lat, min_lon, max_lat, and max_lon rounded to the requested precision, flat aliases for those four extents, named corners sw, ne, nw, and se as latitude and longitude pairs, a center midpoint, width_deg and height_deg for the angular span, the method tag slippy_web_mercator_tile_bounds, the precision used, and a compact formula string for documentation. There is no reverse geocoding path, no network call to a tile CDN, and no random jitter: the engine either projects the four edges inside the supported zoom range or rejects the input with invalid_input. Rejected cases include missing x, y, or z, non-integer values, zoom outside zero through twenty-two, and any tile index that is negative or greater than or equal to two to the z for that zoom.

How x, y, and z are read and how bounds stay reproducible

Zoom must lie in zero through twenty-two inclusive, matching common web-map practice and keeping two to the z inside a safe integer grid. Longitude edges use simple linear scaling: west equals x over n times three hundred sixty minus one hundred eighty, and east uses x plus one. Latitude edges use the classic inverse mercator: north from row y and south from row y plus one via arctangent of sinh of pi times one minus two times the row over n, converted to degrees. The preferred fields are x for the tile column, y for the tile row, and z for the zoom level, but aliases tile_x, col, and column for x, tile_y and row for y, and zoom, zoom_level, and level for z are accepted so query strings, spreadsheets, and typed forms can reuse the same contract. Values may arrive as JSON numbers or as decimal integer strings; floats, hex prefixes, and empty strings are rejected with a clear message so a bad cell does not become a wrong meridian. After z is known, both x and y must satisfy zero less than or equal to index less than two to the z; an out-of-range pair fails with invalid_input and an explicit message that the tile indices exceed the range allowed for that zoom. An optional precision field, with aliases decimals and dp, chooses how many decimal places to expose for all latitudes and longitudes, defaulting to ten and capped at fifteen so JSON goldens stay stable. Pair the free browser run on this page with the priced API when you need the identical mathematical result inside an automated pipeline without re-implementing Web Mercator tile bounds yourself.

Where tile bounding boxes fit in maps, GIS, and software

GIS students use the same conversion when a course introduces Web Mercator after plate carrée and asks for the latitude range of a given tile, not just one corner. Backend services expand tile addresses from CDN logs or client requests into SQL BETWEEN filters, R-tree queries, or GeoJSON rectangles for analytics and heatmaps. Support engineers paste x, y, and z from a 404 and need the full geographic context in one step. On this page the work runs entirely in your browser; through the API each successful lookup costs $0.002, failed validation is not charged, and nothing is stored after the response returns. That split — free interactive exploration and a priced, identical API — matches the rest of the KIT tier-A catalog and lets you move from a classroom demo to an automated pipeline without changing the mathematical result. Pair it with corner-only tile projection, geohash decode, or other geo endpoints when you are building a small lab of free, deterministic mapping helpers, and keep this tool focused on the single question: given a slippy tile, what is its geographic bounding box on Earth.