The service moreover lists within reach businesses and attractions, and Facebook will aim the locations it lists to any Places user.
It has countless privacy controls in place to manage the amount of place data that is shared.
Places is existing in the US and right away the UK is to iPhone and choose other smartphones by Facebook's mobile site, with other countries to come.
Michael Sharon, product executive for Places, mentioned that the definite was working on building the focus for Blackberry and gadgets running the Android working system.
He updated that the definite has done Places' API - the program that allows other programs to interface with it - available, so that Places will be able to confederate with existing location-aware services such as Foursquare.
"We proposed saying that in position updates people were saying things similar to 'going to the gym' or 'hanging out with Joe and Sue'," Mr Sharon mentioned at the UK launch.
"We realised that this is something that people do every singular day, revelation their friends where they are.
"The innate thing is to erect a product that takes value of this and creates it easier, more convenient and more amicable for them to do what they're already doing."
The service allows people to access "Place pages" anyplace they are, indicating local points of fascination and inventory people who are "Here Now" and friends who have visited the place.
Users can then "check in" to the location, creation themselves manifest to their friends, to everybody on Facebook, or to nobody at all.
The place data can then be present on a user's wall and newsfeed; however, the default surroundings is that usually Facebook friends can see the check-in.
Mr Sharon stressed that there were moreover a number of safety features in place for minors; for example, usually a teenager user's friends will be able to see check-ins.
Josh Feldberg, a digital expert in attendance the UK launch, told BBC News that the perfect size of Facebook's user bottom would make it more successful than other location-aware services such as Gowalla and Foursquare.
"It creates my place check-ins more useful; Foursquare's a bit of fun but usually a couple of times has it led to real offline meetups; with Facebook, the people on there are more my shut friends and family."
Advertisements will not be related to Place pages, but rsther than targeted at specific users; Mr Feldberg mentioned the location-aware service could offer new variety of content.
"It could help with their promotion income but their ads are already actually targeted; from a selling indicate of perspective for businesses it offers engaging opportunities. You could do bestow schemes for people who examine in at a established business, for example."
Rik Ferguson of safety definite Trend Micro, trialled the service as it was launched on Friday. He lifted a number of concerns about the functionality that allows users to examine in their friends at a since location.
"One of the leading problems is the way that Facebook have implemented his functionality," Mr Ferguson told BBC News.
"By default, users are opted in to the capability to be tagged by their friends, they are opted in to permitting their friends' Facebook apps to access their place information, and they are opted in to permitting 'non-friends' checked-in to the same place to see their whereabouts.
"This is all retrograde - this should be deployed on a purely opt-in basement and no data about my locale should be posted without my pithy consent, every singular time a post is made."
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