Compass Bearing and Azimuth Calculator

An azimuth is one angle measured clockwise from north across the full 0 to 360 degree circle. A quadrant bearing, also called a reduced bearing, is an acute 0 to 90 degree angle measured from either north or south and turned toward east or west, written like N30E or S45W. They describe the same direction in different words.

The tool adds 180 degrees to the azimuth and subtracts 360 if the total reaches 360 or more. So 30 degrees becomes 210, and 270 degrees becomes 90. The back azimuth is the direction you would face looking straight back along the same line.

0 to 90 degrees is the NE quadrant, written N{angle}E. 90 to 180 falls in SE and is measured up from south as S{180 minus azimuth}E. 180 to 270 is SW as S{azimuth minus 180}W. 270 to 360 is NW as N{360 minus azimuth}W.

Those four azimuths point due north, east, south and west. The calculator returns them as the single letters N, E, S and W instead of an N0E style label, because there is no acute angle to report on a cardinal line.

The angle is formatted to a fixed two decimals, so 30 becomes N30.00E and a value like 12.5 becomes N12.50E. This keeps field notes aligned in columns and makes rounding explicit rather than hidden.

An azimuth must be at least 0 and strictly less than 360 degrees, so 360 itself is rejected as it equals 0. A quadrant acute angle must be from 0 to 90 degrees inclusive. Values outside those bounds show an error rather than a wrong answer.

No. The tool converts in one direction at a time, chosen by the 'Convert from' menu. If both an azimuth and a quadrant were supplied together through the API, it rejects the request to avoid an ambiguous result.

No. It works purely with the numbers you type and does not add or remove any declination. If your compass reads magnetic north, apply your local declination first to get a true bearing, then convert here.

No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser with simple arithmetic, so nothing you enter is uploaded or stored. There is also a JSON API for the same math if you want to script conversions.