Ask HN: What are some good tools for converting GPS data into a location name?

3 points by Devlin_Donnelly 14 years ago · 6 comments · 1 min read

I am working on a web-based application and I want to read in GPS coordinates provided by the user's browser and output a specific location such as the name of a city or other locality.

Thanks for any tips.

3 threads

gspyrou 14 years ago

Try using Google maps reverse geocoding https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/#...

Devlin_DonnellyOP 14 years ago

Thanks for the idea, but apparently google only allows the use this service in conjunction with Google maps, so it won't work for my project.
Maybe there are some open source map databases of GPS coordinates mapped to political/municipal localities?
- bartonfink 14 years ago
  
  MapQuest offers a geocoding service which doesn't tie you to MapQuest's maps the way Google does. It's free up to some usage amount (I think it's 5k requests a day). You can see more here:
  http://www.mapquestapi.com/geocoding/
  - Devlin_DonnellyOP 14 years ago
    
    Thanks it looks like this one might work for my needs.

got2surf 14 years ago

If by chance you're using Ruby on Rails, then http://www.rubygeocoder.com/ is great.

belbn 14 years ago

http://www.google.com/search?q=GPSDATA

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