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The Popularity of geocoding APIs

By Hugh Fort in News Stories, posted September 23, 2022

Each of us in his life is faced with the need to obtain information about the location or, more correctly, the geographical coordinates of one or another needed object. These can be retail outlets, warehouses, some companies, vehicles, couriers, etc.

To the delight of users now there are a large number of different services, the functions of which are the constant processing of various geodata. The geocoding apis service copes with similar tasks very successfully.

First, let's define the necessary terms.

We are talking about direct (DGC) and reverse (RGC) geocoding.

We will talk about DGC if we are faced with the task of translating an ordinary postal address (name of a city, district, street, house number, building, etc.) into a certain geographical point, which is characterized by geographical coordinates - latitude and longitude.

Accordingly, RGC is the reverse process of DGC, namely, when we get the postal address of the object at the point with the specified geographical coordinates.

Obviously, both of these services can be successfully applied in different cases.

For example, a trading house that has a network of order pick-up points throughout the city finds it convenient to use DGC to show the location of the points closest to customers. And for the driver or courier of the delivery service, it may be more convenient to indicate the mailing address of the client and because of this use RGC.

Offline and online geocoding services

Not so long ago, in order to receive geocoding information, users worked in offline services, i.e. downloaded the special programs for these purposes and installed them in applications on their devices. However, at present, online geocoding API (GC) services successfully compete with offline services and are increasingly replacing them. This is because the GC APIs are more accurate and easier to use.

API GC process algorithm

The process starts by sending a request, and it is advisable to use the http interface to ensure maximum security. In addition, the request must include some required parameters. It:

- postal address (according to the format adopted in the respective country);

- api identification key;

You can learn more about all this in the corresponding section of the developer guide.

Additionally, but not necessarily, the request may specify the language in which the response information should be displayed, and a region code consisting of two characters.

In the GC api response, the requested postal address is transformed into geographic data - latitude and longitude.

It is important to note that the result array is formatted as JSON and may be empty in some cases. This happens if the address specified in the request does not actually exist, or other incorrect data is entered.

What is present in the GC api response? First of all - the postal address in a form acceptable for reading. Additionally, the response may specify individual components that are associated with this address.

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If the postal code number implies several settlements, then all these locations will be indicated in the GC api response. Naturally, the response will contain geographic data: latitude and longitude.

Note the importance of additional information that can be in the response and has multiple position data status values. That is, with the help of certain symbols, the status of the location is explained - "exact", "approximate", "average", etc. For more details about address types and component types, see the corresponding section of the developer guide.

It should be noted that if reverse geocoding is required, the request specifies the geographic latitude and longitude of the object instead of the postal address. In this case, the identification api key is indicated in the same way as in the request for direct geocoding.

Just like in the request for DGC, in the request for RGC there may be optional parameters in addition to the mandatory components, . You can learn more about them in the corresponding section of the developer guide.

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