Converting latitude/longitude into city name? (reverse geolocating)

Question

I\'m working on a job board in Codeigniter PHP + jQuery where employers enter their location and we use Google Maps API to plot it. While this has had awesome usability res

Answer 1

FREE SOURCES (e.g. Creative Commons)

Geonames

If you're looking for free (as freedom) sources, you can use Geonames API findNearbyPlaceName.

For example the following returns nearest Placename:

http://api.geonames.org/findNearbyPlaceName?lat=47.3&lng=9&username=demo

More information is available here

http://www.geonames.org/export/web-services.html#findNearbyPlaceName

Freebase

Instead of single point it takes bounded box. Call sample:

http://api.freebase.com/api/service/geosearch?location=[30.2,50.4,30.6,50.8]&location_type=/location/citytown&inside=true&indent=1

Geocoder.ca

Reverse geocoding for North American addresses.

Info: http://geocoder.ca/

Sample call: http://geocoder.ca/?latt=40.70771000786733&longt=-74.0109443664550&reverse=1&allna=1&geoit=xml&corner=1&jsonp=1&callback=test

Map Quest API

Using Open Street Map nominatim service:

http://open.mapquestapi.com/nominatim/v1/search?q=50.4,30.4&format=json

NON FREE SOURCES

Yahoo PlaceFinder

Documentation http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/

Sample call:

http://where.yahooapis.com/geocode?q=38.898717,+-77.035974&gflags=R&appid=[yourappidhere]

Google Maps API

Documentation:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#ReverseGeocoding