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Reverse Geocoding to City API

Introduction

Today, our smart devices can locate our geo-coordinates in real-time and with a high level of accuracy. But, these coordinates are often useless if you cannot identify the locality information such as country/state/city associated with them.

Reverse geocoding is a process that converts latitude and longitude to readable locality properties. Reverse geocoding is an essential component of the modern web, mobile and IoT. Its use cases vary across various industries and applications.  

  • Content Personalisation and Localisation
  • Geotargeting
  • Geofencing
  • Customer data validation
  • Fraud and security threat detection 

How is BigDataCloud’s Reverse Geocoding API different?

Existing reverse geocoding providers are trying to resolve to the closest street address, a household, for the given coordinates. As a result, the quality of data widely varies for mobile and regional users and exhibits slower response times.

Our Reverse Geocoding API is the first to deliver administrative/non-administrative boundaries-based results. Hence, the API is perfectly suitable for determining locality areas such as a suburb, city, state or country, rather than a street address, resulting in much faster response times and excellent support even for less populated areas. 

  • Unprecendly fast response time (sub-millisecond)
  • Delivers Administrative/non-administrative boundaries-based results
  • Provides detailed locality information of a user in 147 common world languages
  • Full postal code level accuracy for the US, Great Britain, and Australia (partial for other countries)

Get Started

This API is part of the Reverse Geocoding API Package and is available in free and paid plans. Please visit the Reverse Geocoding API Package package page for limits and pricing information.

Endpoints

IPv4 only API Endpoint

Use this endpoint to force API calls routed over the IPv4 network only

GET
https://api.bigdatacloud.net/data/reverse-geocode

Dual-Stack API Endpoint

This endpoint has native IPv6 support and backs the API calls routed over both IPv4 and IPv6 networks

GET
https://api-bdc.net/data/reverse-geocode

Request

Parameter
latitude
Type
number (double)
Required
Yes
Description
Latitude value as per WGS 84 reference system (GPS system). Expected values are in [-90, 90] range
Parameter
longitude
Type
number (double)
Required
Yes
Description
Longitude value as per WGS 84 reference system (GPS system). Expected values are in [-180, 180] range
Parameter
localityLanguage
Type
string
Required
Optional, default value: en
Description
Preferred language for locality names in ISO 639-1 format, such as 'en' for English, 'es' for Spanish etc. If the requested language is unavailable for a requested location, it will default to English. If no English variant is available, will provide the native, local names. Use 'default' as the requested value to automatically adjust the language to the first administrative language in the Country.
Parameter
key
Type
string
Required
Yes
Description
Your API key

Responses

200
Success

Sample Query

GET
https://api-bdc.net/data/reverse-geocode?latitude=-34.93129&longitude=138.59669&localityLanguage=en&key=[YOUR API KEY]

Schema

application/json
latitudenumber
Requested Latitude
longitudenumber
Requested Longitude
localityLanguageRequestedstring
localityLanguage input parameter received
continentstring
Localised Continent name in the requested language, if available
continentCodestring
Continent code
countryNamestring
Localised Country name in the requested language, if available
countryCodestring
Country code as defined by ISO 3166-1 standard
principalSubdivisionstring
Localised principal subdivision name in the requested language, if available
principalSubdivisionCodestring
Principal subdivision code as defined by ISO 3166-2 standard
citystring
The most significant populated place this location belongs. It will likely be the City name in the language requested. If unavailable, use the locality name field as a failover
localitystring
Represents the smallest geographic area recognised to which the target belongs. The language, if available, is as defined by 'localityLanguage' request parameter
postcodestring
Postcode, if available
plusCodestring
Open Location Code
fips
FIPS code object, omitted if unavailable. FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) Codes are codes used by the Census Bureau to uniquely identify places in the US. Visit FIPS FAQ page for more information.
statestring
State-level FIPS codes have two digits
countystring
A three digits County-level FIPS code.
countySubdivisionstring
FIPS five digits County Subdivision Code
placestring
FIPS five digits place code, omitted if unavailable
csdCodestring
CSD (Census Subdivision) code, omitted if unavailable. Canadian Geographic Codes. Visit CSD FAQ page for more information.
localityInfo
localityInfo object
administrativearray
Administrative authorities as ordered by area (most significant first). Omitted if no administrative boundaries are available
namestring
Localised name of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
descriptionstring
Localised description of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
isoNamestring
ISO 3166-2 standard name, if available
orderinteger
Order value consistent across all entities in the Locality Info parent object. Ordered by geographic area (most significant first)
adminLevelinteger
An administrative level as defined by OpenStreetMaps project
isoCodestring
ISO 3166-2 standard code, if available
wikidataIdstring
Wikidata item identifier, if available
geonameIdinteger
Unique identifier given by GeoNames.org, if available
chinaAdminCodestring
China Administrative division code. Only available for locations based in China and omitted for others
informativearray
Non-administrative boundaries as ordered by area (most significant first). Omitted if unavailable
namestring
Localised name of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
descriptionstring
Localised description of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
isoNamestring
ISO 3166-2 standard name, if available
orderinteger
Order value consistent across all entities in the Locality Info parent object. Ordered by geographic area (most significant first)
adminLevelinteger
An administrative level as defined by OpenStreetMaps project
isoCodestring
ISO 3166-2 standard code, if available
wikidataIdstring
Wikidata item identifier, if available
geonameIdinteger
Unique identifier given by GeoNames.org, if available
chinaAdminCodestring
China Administrative division code. Only available for locations based in China and omitted for others

Sample Response

JSON View
400
Bad request

Sample Response

JSON View
401
Invalid coordinates

Sample Response

JSON View
403
Access denied, or your quota limit has exceeded

Sample Response

JSON View
500
An error has occurred and did not complete your request. Please try again

Sample Response

JSON View
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