Converting latitude and longitude to human readable street or postal address is called reverse geocoding. This free reverse geocoder will help you to find nearest address to your entered lat lon in comma separated form e.g. (33.90611829975539, -80.3775045281743). This is free geocoding service and may be unavailable if load on server is high. Also it depends upon OSM coverage of landmarks and addresses.
What is Reverse Geocoding?
Converting latitude & Longitude into a street address if available is called reverse geocoding. User enter a pair of lat lon and will get address in return. Address can be a precise postal address or generic place and locality name, it totally depends upon which database is being used to fetch this information.
Famous Reverse Geocoding Providers:
There a many reverse geocoding services providers. Few of them are listed below.
OpenStreetMap is a free geocoding service and available free of cost. In this lat lon to address conversion application, we are using OpenStreetMaps.
How Reverse Geocoding Works?
A set of lan lat values with comma separation will be inserted in the search bar at top of the application. e.g 33.90611829975539, -80.3775045281743. Lat long value must be in decimal degree geographical coordinates system.
Application will locate the entered coordinates on map with basemap of OpenStreetMaps. The application will try to find the nearest address or geographic feature to the coordinates.
A popup will be displayed on map showing location details including coordinates, address location and postal code. It will retrieve the address information according to availability in the database of geocoding services provider. In this application OSM is the free geocoding service provider.
Address will also be displayed in address bar with same information as shown in popup window. You can easily copy the address that was converted from entered lat lon values.
This free reverse geocoding application also allow user to switch basemap from street view to satellite view.
What to Consider During Reverse Geocoding?
Services like Google Maps Geocoding API often return more accurate and precise street-level in depth addresses in urban areas, while OpenStreetMap (OSM) (It’s Free) is excellent in regions with strong volunteer mapping communities where people contribute to update the free maps. So, data coverage matters a lot while performing such analysis. It really depends upon the goal to achieve. If you are doing it only for educational purposes then OSM is a free good choice and if you will use it for commercial aims then Google Maps Geocoding API is a good choice. First 10000 queries are free then it is pay as you go.