Quadrant Bearing Converter

About this calculator

A quadrant bearing (also called a reduced bearing) describes a direction relative to the nearest north or south point, written as something like N30°E or S45°W, rather than as a single whole-circle azimuth measured clockwise from 0° to 360°. This calculator converts an azimuth into its quadrant bearing equivalent, identifying which of the four quadrants (NE, SE, SW, NW) the direction falls into and the acute angle from north or south within it.

Quadrant bearings remain the standard notation in land surveying, property deed descriptions, and civil engineering plans, especially in the US and other common-law jurisdictions where legal metes-and-bounds descriptions of land boundaries are traditionally written this way, even though modern GPS and GIS systems typically work internally in azimuths. Surveyors and title researchers routinely convert between the two forms when reading old deeds or preparing new plats.