I want to be free » geo http://i1t2b3.com Any fool can make things bigger and more complex Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:34:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=330 Reverse Geocoding http://i1t2b3.com/2009/09/06/reverse-geocoding/ http://i1t2b3.com/2009/09/06/reverse-geocoding/#comments Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:48:18 +0000 Skakunov Alexander http://i1t2b3.com/?p=512 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:

  1. Google GeoCoder (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 an example you can play with.
  2. GeoNames.org 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.

GeoNamesBy the way, here are results of benchmarking Google vs. GeoNames.

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