diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index d9e51d1c..d3a05a67 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ Internal changes
 * Refactored ``xs.spatial.subset`` into smaller functions. (:pull:`367`).
 * An `encoding` argument was added to ``xs.config.load_config``. (:pull:`370`).
 * Various small fixes to the code to address FutureWarnings. (:pull:`380`).
+* ``xs.spatial.subset`` will try to guess CF coordinate if it can't find "latitude" or "longitude" in ``ds.cf``. (:pull:`384`).
 
 Bug fixes
 ^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/tests/test_spatial.py b/tests/test_spatial.py
index db89704e..b7559efd 100644
--- a/tests/test_spatial.py
+++ b/tests/test_spatial.py
@@ -275,6 +275,20 @@ def test_subset_wrong_method(self):
         with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="Subsetting type not recognized"):
             xs.spatial.subset(self.ds, "wrong", lon=-70, lat=45)
 
+    def test_subset_no_attributes(self):
+        ds = self.ds.copy()
+        ds.lat.attrs = {}
+        ds.lon.attrs = {}
+        assert "latitude" not in ds.cf
+
+        xs.spatial.subset(
+            ds,
+            "bbox",
+            name="test",
+            lon_bnds=[-63, -60],
+            lat_bnds=[47, 50],
+        )
+
 
 def test_dask_coords():
     ds = datablock_3d(
diff --git a/xscen/spatial.py b/xscen/spatial.py
index 0fa66666..8ebe2239 100644
--- a/xscen/spatial.py
+++ b/xscen/spatial.py
@@ -183,6 +183,9 @@ def subset(
             UserWarning,
         )
 
+    if "latitude" not in ds.cf or "longitude" not in ds.cf:
+        ds = ds.cf.guess_coord_axis()
+
     if method == "gridpoint":
         ds_subset = _subset_gridpoint(ds, name=name, **kwargs)
     elif method == "bbox":