Your area

The rough place the global community uses to show you the listings near you, and how to change or clear it.

What your area is

On the global community, your area is roughly where you are: about 10 km around a town or a spot, never your exact place. The global community uses it to show you what's on offer near you: the nearest 500 listings within 250 km of it. See "More than one community".

You give it when you join, at Roughly where are you?, which you can skip with Skip for now. You can change it or clear it any time. It belongs to your account in the global community, so your phone and the web app use the same one.

Your other communities don't ask for it. One whose server is set up to work the same way shows Your area in its Settings too.

Seeing yours

Open Settings: tap the sliders button at the top right of the screen (on a wide computer screen, the gear in the left sidebar).
Under App Settings, tap Your area. On the phone it is just under Location.
You can also reach it from People → Community when no area is set, by tapping Set your area.

It says About 10 km around and the town you typed, or two numbers if you used your location, or Not set. The town's name is kept only on the phone or in the browser where you typed it, so elsewhere you see the two numbers. If the app can't reach the community, the row says Couldn't check right now.

Changing it

In Your area, under Roughly where are you?, tap Use my location, or Type a town or suburb and choose your town from the list.
Once it is saved, you are back in Settings.
Cancel (in a browser, ← Back to Settings) leaves it as it was.

Your phone or your browser rounds the place to about 10 km before it is sent, and the community rounds it again, so your exact spot is never sent or kept. Use my location takes one reading of where you are. To find a town, what you type is sent to OpenStreetMap, which the list of places comes from.

When your area changes, your phone swaps the listings it keeps for the ones near the new area the next time it syncs. If you change it in the web app or on another phone, your phone picks it up within about an hour.

Clearing it

In Your area, tap Clear. It is there only while you have an area.

Without an area you still use the global community as before. Your phone keeps the newest 100 listings from everywhere instead of the ones near you, and a line above the Market says You're seeing the newest listings worldwide. Set your area to see what's near you. Tap it to set one. In the web app, the Market and the Map show the newest from everywhere: see "Finding things near you".

Who sees what

Other members see how far away you are, and a poll you make is shown at your area. See "Your privacy".
Without an area, members nearby won't see a poll you make in their list, though they can still find it by searching.