Get country from latitude longitude

Question

I would like to know how I can get the country name from latitude & longitude using JavaScript. I am open to use of Google Maps’ JavaScript API. Can I also get city and zip?

Edit: My aim is to fill up the address field automatically, not to display it on a map.

Answer 1

I don't know if it works with google maps, but there is a web service that returns a country code and takes as parameters the lat and long.

Here is an example:
http://api.geonames.org/countryCodeJSON?lat=49.03&lng=10.2&username=demo

Returns a JSON data: {"languages":"de","distance":"0","countryCode":"DE","countryName":"Germany"}

I also found a little description:

The iso country code of any given point.

• Webservice Type: REST
• Url: ws.geonames.org/countryCode?
• Parameters: lat, lng, type, lang, radius (buffer in km for closest country in coastal areas)
• Result: returns the iso country code for the given latitude/longitude

With the parameter type=xml this service returns an xml document with iso country code and country name. The optional parameter lang can be used to specify the language the country name should be in. JSON output is produced with type=JSON

See the docs

Edit: Please note that demo is just a demonstration user and you should create a user account at http://www.geonames.org/login in order to use the service.

Answer 2

Google Geocoding API provides these results in JSON format. It has a free tier but you will need to pay for unlimited requests to the API.

The API link to the request will look like this:

'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=11.2742848,75.8013801&key=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE'

Answer 3

If a self-contained library (i.e. no server / internet connection, and fast) is desirable, and only country information is required, the following library based on openstreetmap data can be useful - https://github.com/hlaw/codegrid-js

<script type="text/javascript" src="[path]/codegrid.js"></script>
grid = codegrid.CodeGrid(); // initialize

grid.getCode (lat, lng, function (err, code) { ... });

The callback is called with code, the country code for the latlng.

Answer 4

<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://j.maxmind.com/app/geoip.js" ></script>
    <br />Country Code:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_country_code());</script>
    <br />Country Name:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_country_name());</script>
    <br />City:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_city());</script>
    <br />Region:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_region());</script>
    <br />Region Name:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_region_name());</script>
    <br />Latitude:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_latitude());</script>
    <br />Longitude:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_longitude());</script>
    <br />Postal Code:
    <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_postal_code());</script>

</div>
</form>

Answer 5

Yes, you can use google maps to find the country for given latitudes and longitudes. Use the reverse geocoding service.

You can get the country, city, zip code and the complete address from the response you get from the server. Check the example from the link for details ;)

Answer 6

In case you only need the country information based on coords (lat, lng), you can use the coordinate_to_country npm package. This way you don't need to make any API. It is based on OSM country boundaries.

EDIT:

It worth to note that the coordinate_to_country npm package is quite heavy, causing a efficiency issues on the client-side. This is due to the ~50Mb geojson file in the @osm_borders/maritime_10m dependent package.

Therefore, if you don't need all countries included in your coordinates lookup, you are better off using geojson-geometries-lookup npm package and a custom geojson file of the countries you need.

Another alternative is use a lower resolution country shapes file to reduce file size - this can compromise accuracy.

Here is a site to download custom selection of geojson country shapes: https://osm-boundaries.com/

---

Otherwise, if you need more location information (city, address, neighbourhood etc.) you can explore various geocoding API's such as:

• OSM - Nominatim
• Mapbox Geocoding
• Google Maps Geocoding
• OpenCage Geocoding
• Tomtom Geocoding

Answer 7

If you are using golang you can use one of these 2 libraries to get the country and you don't need to even need make an api call as the data set is inbuilt so its unlimited.

https://github.com/SocialHarvest/geobed

https://github.com/bradfitz/latlong

Answer 8

You can do it with: https://www.weatherapi.com/ its FREE.

My demo is in React and step by step, but you can do it in any way you want, the key is this Weather API, that accepts LON and LAT as a string to produce city and weather info -> https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?key=YOUR-KEY&q=LATITUDE,LONGITUDE&days=1&aqi=no&alerts=n

Note: you will to generate YOUR OWN KEY, by signing up

You will need 4 states for this:

const [userAllowedLocation, setUserAllowedLocation] = useState(true);
const [latitude, setLatitude] = useState("");
const [longitude, setLongitude] = useState("");
const [city, setCity] = useState("");

get Lat and Lon + pop up

First: Request access to 'location' from user (this will have a POP-UP), by using this code and set state to Latitude and Longitude.

useEffect(() => {
    function getPosition() {
        const successCallback = (position) => {
            console.log(position);
            setLatitude(position.coords.latitude);
            setLongitude(position.coords.longitude);
            setUserAllowedLocation(true);
        };

        const errorCallback = (error) => {
            setUserAllowedLocation(false);
            console.log(error);
        };

        navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(successCallback, errorCallback);
    }

    getPosition();
}, []);

Fetch City / Country based on Lat & Lon:

Second use https://www.weatherapi.com/ API to get City and other intel, based on Lat and Lon

API looks like this: https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?key=3e5e13fac8354c818de152831211305&q=53.3498053,-6.2603097&days=1&aqi=no&alerts=n

API with explanation: https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?key=3e5e13fac8354c818de152831211305&q=LATITUDE,LONGITUDE&days=1&aqi=no&alerts=n

Now call this API with latitude and longitude to get location data, including city. I am using useEffect as a trigger, so as soon as I get info on Latitude I call the api using axios and set City state to what ever comes out of the api object.

useEffect(() => {
    if (latitude === "" || longitude === "") { // this is to stop fetching data on component mount, cause we have no Latitude and Longitude YET
        return;
    }

    async function getWeather() {
        let res = await axios.get(
            `https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?key=3e5e13fac8354c818de152831211305&q=${latitude},${longitude}&days=1&aqi=no&alerts=no`
        );
        console.log(res.data);
        console.log(res.data.location.name);
        setCity(res.data.location.name);
    }
    getWeather();
}, [latitude, longitude]);

Here is video to my youtube channel, where you can see a demo of this: https://youtu.be/gxcG8V3Fpbk

RESULT from API:

"location": {
"name": "Dublin",
"region": "Dublin",
"country": "Ireland",
"lat": 53.35,
"lon": -6.26,
"tz_id": "Europe/Dublin",
"localtime_epoch": 1673737376,
"localtime": "2023-01-14 23:02"
},