Reverse geocoding to return results only in English?

Question

Using the code below I'm requesting a reverse geocoding for the current coordinate.
Everything works great, except for when the device is set to a different language than English.
Example: If the language of the device is Italian, and I'm in Italy, the result for country is "Italia" instead of "Italy".

How can I force the results to be only in English, regardless of the language of the device?

CLGeocoder *geoCoder = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];
[geoCoder reverseGeocodeLocation:myCurrentLocation completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {

    for (CLPlacemark * placemark in placemarks) {

        [locationController setLastKnownCountry:[placemark country]];
    }
}];

Thank you.

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 13 '14 at 11:12

19

You have to use the NSLocale class that manages info in every language. Then for your final translation you have to force the locale to be in english language:

CLGeocoder *geoCoder = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];
[geoCoder reverseGeocodeLocation:myCurrentLocation completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {

    for (CLPlacemark * placemark in placemarks) {
         //Obtains the country code, that is the same whatever language you are working with (US, ES, IT ...)
         NSString *countryCode = [placemark ISOcountryCode];
         //Obtains a locale identifier. This will handle every language
         NSString *identifier = [NSLocale localeIdentifierFromComponents: [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject: countryCode forKey: NSLocaleCountryCode]];
         //Obtains the country name from the locale BUT IN ENGLISH (you can set it as "en_UK" also)
         NSString *country = [[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en_US"] displayNameForKey: NSLocaleIdentifier value:identifier];

        //Continues your code
        [locationController setLastKnownCountry:country];
    }
}];

answered Aug 13 '14 at 11:12

lihudi

860
1
12
21

This works well, but is there any way to get the rest of the stuff from `CLPlacemark` in "hardcoded" english locale? (i.e., State, City etc.) – Aviel Gross Mar 31 '15 at 06:22
1

@AvielGross: I don't think you can do that with other data than the country. If you need to do it you should change the NSStandardDefaults as set here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13359152/clplacemark-locality-value-changes-if-the-device-language-is-different – lihudi Apr 06 '15 at 14:55
@lihudi this was my initial try to solve this, I moved to yours since the defaults "trick" didn't work for me... Might be something with iOS8/.2... – Aviel Gross Apr 06 '15 at 14:58
what is locationController – Pintu Rajput Jun 21 '16 at 14:00
I don’t know. It was on the asker's code. I left it there to show him/her where to continue writing his/her code – lihudi Jun 22 '16 at 17:18

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 17 '18 at 11:10

6

It works with the iOS 11 API: reverseGeocodeLocation(_:preferredLocale:completionHandler:)

Sadly I need to support other iOS versions and changing the UserDefaults does neither feel good nor work for me :-(

answered Jan 17 '18 at 11:10

lucasl

498
6
15

score -4 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 11 '14 at 11:45

You can try the below code to extract the name of the country from the placemark which will show the result in english only regardless the county name

- (void)findAddress:(CLLocationDegrees)latitude with:(CLLocationDegrees)longitude
{
    CLLocation *location =[[CLLocation alloc]initWithLatitude:latitude longitude:longitude];
    CLGeocoder *geocoder = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];
    [geocoder reverseGeocodeLocation:location completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {
        NSLog(@"Finding address");
        if (error) {
            NSLog(@"Error %@", error.description);
        } else {
            NSLog(@"%@",[placemarks valueForKey:@"country"]);
        }
    }];
}

It's pretty much the code I've posted in the question. And no, it does not give the result in English since the request to Apple's servers already contains the "desired" language. — thedp, Aug 21 '14 at 11:56

Reverse geocoding to return results only in English?

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