Reverse Geocoding to City API

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)
GEThttps://api-bdc.net/data/reverse-geocode

Parameters

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
latitudenumber (double)OptionalLatitude value as per WGS 84 reference system (GPS system). Expected values are in [-90, 90] range
longitudenumber (double)OptionalLongitude value as per WGS 84 reference system (GPS system). Expected values are in [-180, 180] range
localityLanguagestringOptionalPreferred 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.
keystringOptionalYour API key

Responses

200OK

Sample Request

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

Sample Response

JSON View

Response Schema

latitudenumberRequested Latitude
longitudenumberRequested Longitude
localityLanguageRequestedstringThe locality language that was used for this response, as requested via the `localityLanguage` parameter (ISO 639-1 code, e.g. "en").
continentstringLocalised Continent name in the requested language, if available
continentCodestringThe ISO continent code for the location (e.g. "EU" for Europe, "AS" for Asia, "OC" for Oceania)
countryNamestringLocalised Country name in the requested language, if available
countryCodestringCountry code as defined by ISO 3166-1 standard
principalSubdivisionstringLocalised principal subdivision name in the requested language, if available
principalSubdivisionCodestringPrincipal subdivision code as defined by ISO 3166-2 standard
citystringThe 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
localitystringThe most granular named locality (suburb, village, or town) that the coordinates fall within. Localised to the requested language where available.
postcodestringPostcode, if available
plusCodestringThe Open Location Code (Plus Code) for this location (e.g. "4RRH46J6+22"). A compact, address-independent encoding of coordinates.
fipsobjectFIPS 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.
statestringState-level FIPS codes have two digits
countystringA three digits County-level FIPS code.
countySubdivisionstringFIPS five digits County Subdivision Code
placestringFIPS five digits place code, omitted if unavailable
csdCodestringCSD (Census Subdivision) code, omitted if unavailable. Canadian Geographic Codes. Visit CSD FAQ page for more information.
localityInfoobjectlocalityInfo object
administrativearrayAdministrative authorities as ordered by area (most significant first). Omitted if no administrative boundaries are available
namestringLocalised name of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
descriptionstringLocalised description of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
isoNamestringISO 3166-2 standard name, if available
orderintegerOrder value consistent across all entities in the Locality Info parent object. Ordered by geographic area (most significant first)
adminLevelintegerAn administrative level as defined by OpenStreetMaps project
isoCodestringISO 3166-2 standard code, if available
wikidataIdstringWikidata item identifier, if available
geonameIdintegerUnique identifier given by GeoNames.org, if available
chinaAdminCodestringChina Administrative division code. Only available for locations based in China and omitted for others
informativearrayNon-administrative boundaries as ordered by area (most significant first). Omitted if unavailable
namestringLocalised name of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
descriptionstringLocalised description of the place in the requested language, if available. The language is as defined by the 'localityLanguage' request parameter
isoNamestringISO 3166-2 standard name, if available
orderintegerOrder value consistent across all entities in the Locality Info parent object. Ordered by geographic area (most significant first)
adminLevelintegerAn administrative level as defined by OpenStreetMaps project
isoCodestringISO 3166-2 standard code, if available
wikidataIdstringWikidata item identifier, if available
geonameIdintegerUnique identifier given by GeoNames.org, if available
chinaAdminCodestringChina Administrative division code. Only available for locations based in China and omitted for others
400Bad request

Sample Response

JSON View
401Invalid coordinates

Sample Response

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

Sample Response

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

Sample Response

JSON View