Sep 06
Reverse Geocoding is process opposite to Geocoding (when you get map coordinates by city/country given). So the idea is to get city name by coordinates on the map.
Why you may need it? For example, user is supposed to add a marker on the map, and you want to check that the marker is within a particular country or region.
Solutions:
- (JavaScript) can work with coordinates to retrieve location name. Advantage is that return information is translated to the preferred language of your browser. Here is you can play with.
- offers several services, among which you can find Reverse Geocoding web service (REST or JSON) which can work with coordinates and postal codes. Advantage — you can download city/region/country names and POI with coordinates.
By the way, here are results of benchmarking .
September 9th, 2009 at 18:42
One more solution – Cloudmade Geocoding. Advantages – based on open-source maps (OpenStreetMap), you can indicate object type in detail (not only city, road, poi by pub, hotel, etc).