The Complete Guide to Notion's Place Property: What It Can (and Can't) Do
Master the Notion Place property to track locations with coordinates. Learn setup, limitations, and export options. Start mapping today.
The Notion Place property stores geographic coordinates, addresses, and place names in your databases, making it the foundation for any location-based workflow in Notion. Whether you're building a travel bucket list, cataloging real estate properties, or mapping out sales territories, understanding how this property works will save you hours of frustration and unlock possibilities you might not have considered.
What Exactly Is the Notion Place Property?
The Place property is Notion's native way of storing geographic locations in your databases. Unlike a simple text field where you might type an address, the Place property connects to mapping services to store structured location data. When you add a Place property to any database, each row can hold a complete location with coordinates, address information, and even integration with Google's place database.
Think of it as the difference between writing "123 Main Street" on a sticky note versus dropping a pin on a map. The sticky note gives you text; the pin gives you actionable geographic data that you can export to KML, GPX, or GeoJSON.
The Data Behind Every Place
When you select a location in a Place property, Notion stores more than just what you see on screen. Each place contains a name (usually the business or landmark name), a formatted address, and precise latitude and longitude coordinates. Depending on the location source, Notion may also store a Google Place ID or AWS Place ID for reference.
This structured data is what makes the Place property genuinely useful rather than just a fancy text field. The coordinates mean your locations can be plotted on maps, exported to GPS devices like Garmin, or used in any application that understands geographic data.
Adding and Using Place Properties
Setting up a Place property takes seconds. In any database, click the plus icon to add a new property, select "Place" from the property types, and you're ready to go. When editing a row, clicking on the Place field opens a search interface where you can type an address, business name, or landmark. Notion searches across mapping services and presents matching results with their full addresses.
For best results, be specific in your searches. "Eiffel Tower" works perfectly, but "coffee shop" will give you results near your current location, which may or may not be helpful. If you're adding a location in another city, include the city name in your search to get accurate results faster.
Some users report success pasting coordinates directly into the search field, which can be useful when working with locations that don't have formal addresses, like hiking trailheads or remote campsites. Results may vary depending on the coordinate format.
The Frustrating Limitations
Here's where we need to be honest about what the Place property can't do, because these limitations catch many users off guard.
As of this writing, you cannot easily copy and paste Place property values between rows or databases. If you have many locations to add and they're already in a spreadsheet, you may need to search and select each one individually. Bulk import options for Place properties are limited compared to text-based properties.
Automation support for the Place property is also limited. Many users find that Notion's built-in automations and third-party tools have restricted support for setting Place values programmatically. If your workflow depends on automatically populating locations, you may need to explore workarounds or check for updated automation capabilities.
The search functionality, while generally good, may occasionally fail to find certain locations. Newly opened businesses, locations in less-mapped regions, and places with unusual names sometimes don't appear in search results. When this happens, you may need to try alternative search terms or look up coordinates manually.
Workarounds That Actually Work
For bulk data entry, the most practical approach is to have your location list open in one window while you work through your Notion database in another. It's tedious, but searching by name or address is faster than you might expect once you get into a rhythm. For tips on managing large collections, see our guide on organizing 100+ locations in Notion.
When the search fails to find a location, grab the coordinates from Google Maps. Right-click any point on Google Maps, and the coordinates appear at the top of the context menu. You can paste these directly into Notion's Place search field.
For locations you reference frequently across multiple databases, consider creating a master locations database and using relations instead of duplicating Place entries. This way, you only need to set each location once.
Extending Place Properties with Notion to Maps
The Place property stores excellent data, but Notion itself doesn't do much with it beyond displaying a small map preview. This is where external tools become valuable.
Notion to Maps reads your Place property data and transforms it into formats that other applications understand. Export your locations to KML for Google Earth, GPX for hiking GPS devices, or GeoJSON for web mapping applications. Your carefully curated location database becomes portable, usable anywhere geographic data is accepted.
The shareable map pages also solve a common problem: showing your locations to people who don't use Notion. Instead of granting database access or taking screenshots, you can share an interactive map that updates automatically as your database changes. This is particularly useful for team travel planning or creating shareable city guides.
Making the Most of What You Have
Despite its limitations, the Place property is the native way to handle structured location data in Notion. The structured data it provides is genuinely useful, and the search interface, while imperfect, is faster than manually looking up and typing coordinates.
Build your location databases with export in mind. Use consistent naming conventions, add descriptive properties alongside your places, and think about how you might want to filter or categorize locations later. The time you invest in organization pays off when you need to actually use this data outside of Notion.
The Place property isn't perfect, but it's a solid foundation for location-based workflows. Understanding both its capabilities and its constraints helps you build systems that work with the tool rather than fighting against it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I add a Place property to my Notion database?
Open any Notion database, click the plus icon in the column header to add a new property, and select "Place" from the dropdown menu. Name it something descriptive like "Location" or "Address." Once created, click any cell in that column to search for and add locations. Notion will automatically fetch coordinates and address information for each place you select.
What's the difference between Notion Place and Location properties?
Notion's Place property is the official property type for geographic data, storing coordinates, addresses, and place names with mapping service integration. There is no separate "Location" property type in Notion. Some users create text properties named "Location" for simple address storage, but these lack the structured coordinate data that makes the Place property valuable for mapping and export.
Can I import locations from Google Maps to Notion?
There's no direct import from Google Maps to Notion's Place property. However, you can copy coordinates from Google Maps (right-click any point to see lat/lon) and paste them into Notion's Place search field. For bulk imports, you'll need to search and select each location individually, as Notion doesn't support CSV import directly into Place properties.
How many locations can I store in a Notion database?
Notion doesn't impose a hard limit on the number of rows in a database, so you can store thousands of locations with Place properties. However, very large databases may experience slower loading times. For databases exceeding a few hundred locations, consider using filtered views and good organizational practices to maintain performance.
Can I export Notion Place property data to other apps?
Yes, but not directly from Notion. Notion's native export doesn't separate coordinates into usable columns. Tools like Notion to Maps extract the latitude and longitude from Place properties and export to standard formats like KML, GPX, GeoJSON, and CSV that work with Google Earth, Garmin devices, and mapping applications.