Generating random locations nearby?

This is tricky for two reasons: first, limiting the points to a circle instead of a square; second, accounting for distortions in the distance calculations.

Many GISes include capabilities that automatically and transparently handle both complications. However, the tags here suggest that a GIS-independent description of an algorithm may be desirable.

1. To generate points uniformly, randomly, and independently within a circle of radius r around a location (x0, y0), start by generating two independent uniform random values u and v in the interval [0, 1). (This is what almost every random number generator provides you.) Compute

   w = r * sqrt(u)
   t = 2 * Pi * v
   x = w * cos(t) 
   y = w * sin(t)
   

   The desired random point is at location (x+x0, y+y0).

2. When using geographic (lat,lon) coordinates, then x0 (longitude) and y0 (latitude) will be in degrees but r will most likely be in meters (or feet or miles or some other linear measurement). First, convert the radius r into degrees as if you were located near the equator. Here, there are about 111,300 meters in a degree.

   Second, after generating x and y as in step (1), adjust the x-coordinate for the shrinking of the east-west distances:

   x' = x / cos(y0)
   

   The desired random point is at location (x'+x0, y+y0). This is an approximate procedure. For small radii (less than a few hundred kilometers) that do not extend over either pole of the earth, it will usually be so accurate you cannot detect any error even when generating tens of thousands of random points around each center (x0,y0).

The correct implementation is:

public static void getLocation(double x0, double y0, int radius) {
    Random random = new Random();

    // Convert radius from meters to degrees
    double radiusInDegrees = radius / 111000f;

    double u = random.nextDouble();
    double v = random.nextDouble();
    double w = radiusInDegrees * Math.sqrt(u);
    double t = 2 * Math.PI * v;
    double x = w * Math.cos(t);
    double y = w * Math.sin(t);

    // Adjust the x-coordinate for the shrinking of the east-west distances
    double new_x = x / Math.cos(Math.toRadians(y0));

    double foundLongitude = new_x + x0;
    double foundLatitude = y + y0;
    System.out.println("Longitude: " + foundLongitude + "  Latitude: " + foundLatitude );
}

I removed the dependency on external libraries to make it more accessible.

Implemented for Javascript:

var r = 100/111300 // = 100 meters
  , y0 = original_lat
  , x0 = original_lng
  , u = Math.random()
  , v = Math.random()
  , w = r * Math.sqrt(u)
  , t = 2 * Math.PI * v
  , x = w * Math.cos(t)
  , y1 = w * Math.sin(t)
  , x1 = x / Math.cos(y0)

newY = y0 + y1
newX = x0 + x1