OpenCage Guides to Geocoding and Geosearch

Background, examples and recipes for common use cases and questions

General Background

Why Open Data?
- What benefits does open data offer?
Geocoding vs Geosearch
- What is the difference between geocoding and geosearch?
Reverse Geocoding
- All aspects of converting coordinates into location information

Geocoding Questions and Scenarios

Formatting your query
- Clean up your geocoding queries to get the results you want.
Speed up your geocoding
- Run your geocoding faster.
Geocoding large datasets
- Points to consider when processing massive volumes of locations.
Geocoding accuracy
- Is this the result you're looking for?
Migrating from Nominatim
- Switch to OpenCage from Nominatim
Migrating from Google Maps
- Switch to OpenCage from Google Maps geocoding
Build or Buy?
- Should you write your own geocoder?
Limit API results to a certain country or region
- Only get the geocoding results you need.
Geocoding and postal codes
- Common questions and misunderstandings related to postal codes
Formatting Addresses
- Presenting location information in the format users expect
Putting results on a map
- How to display geocoding results on a map.
Browser Geolocation
- Determine a user's location with browser geolocation.
Show an imprecise location
- Show only a rough or imprecise location to preserve privacy.
Writing an SDK or integration
- Step-by-step guide to writing an SDK for our geocoding API
Convert image GPS coordinates into location information
- How to turn image coordinates into useful location information
Convert coordinates to country
- Determining which country coordinates are located in
Determine the ISO codes for a location
- Map coordinates or addresses to ISO 3166 codes
Determine the county for an address
- Which county is this address in?
Replacing your geocoding API key
- How to deactivate an API key and create a new one
Protect your API key
- Best practices for keeping your API key safe.

Geosearch (location autosuggest) Background

What is Geosearch?
- Helping users turn search queries into locations
Why is geosearch needed?
- Location search is not the same as traditional web search
Consumer expectations for location search
- UX challenges in building a location autosuggest
Geosearch: Technical Considerations
- Technical challenges in building a location autosuggest