Example: A grid reference is a number that is used to help locate places on a map. But how is this done? I will show you an example. Northings and Eastings are lines found on maps which are numbered. Northings are horizontal lines and Eastings are vertical lines. An example of a grid reference is 4884. There are four numbers in this grid reference and the numbers should be split into two groups: 48 and 84. The number 48 represents the Easting value