Geocoder

Complete geocoding solution for Ruby.

Key features:

• Forward and reverse geocoding.
• IP address geocoding.
• Connects to more than 40 APIs worldwide.
• Performance-enhancing features like caching.
• Integrates with ActiveRecord and Mongoid.
• Basic geospatial queries: search within radius (or rectangle, or ring).

Compatibility:

• Ruby versions: 2.5+ and JRuby.
• Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and MongoDB.
• Rails: 5.x, 6.x, 7.x and 8.x.
• Works outside of Rails with the json (for MRI) or json_pure (for JRuby) gem.

Table of Contents

Basic Features:

• Basic Search
• Geocoding Objects
• Geospatial Database Queries
• Geocoding HTTP Requests
• Geocoding Service ("Lookup") Configuration

Advanced Features:

• Performance and Optimization
• Advanced Model Configuration
• Advanced Database Queries
• Geospatial Calculations
• Batch Geocoding
• Testing
• Error Handling
• Command Line Interface

The Rest:

• Technical Discussions
• Troubleshooting
• Known Issues
• Reporting Issues
• Contributing

See Also:

• Guide to Geocoding APIs (formerly part of this README)

Basic Search

In its simplest form, Geocoder takes an address and searches for its latitude/longitude coordinates:

results = Geocoder.search("Paris")
results.first.coordinates
# => [48.856614, 2.3522219]  # latitude and longitude

The reverse is possible too. Given coordinates, it finds an address:

results = Geocoder.search([48.856614, 2.3522219])
results.first.address
# => "Hôtel de Ville, 75004 Paris, France"

You can also look up the location of an IP address:

results = Geocoder.search("172.56.21.89")
results.first.coordinates
# => [30.267153, -97.7430608]
results.first.country
# => "United States"

The success and accuracy of geocoding depends entirely on the API being used to do these lookups. Most queries work fairly well with the default configuration, but every application has different needs and every API has its particular strengths and weaknesses. If you need better coverage for your application you'll want to get familiar with the large number of supported APIs, listed in the API Guide.

Geocoding Objects

To automatically geocode your objects:

1. Your model must provide a method that returns an address to geocode. This can be a single attribute, but it can also be a method that returns a string assembled from different attributes (eg: city, state, and country). For example, if your model has street, city, state, and country attributes you might do something like this:

def address
  [street, city, state, country].compact.join(', ')
end

2. Your model must have a way to store latitude/longitude coordinates. With ActiveRecord, add two attributes/columns (of type float or decimal) called latitude and longitude. For MongoDB, use a single field (of type Array) called coordinates (i.e., field :coordinates, type: Array). (See Advanced Model Configuration for using different attribute names.)

3. In your model, tell geocoder where to find the object's address:

geocoded_by :address

This adds a geocode method which you can invoke via callback:

after_validation :geocode

Reverse geocoding (given lat/lon coordinates, find an address) is similar:

reverse_geocoded_by :latitude, :longitude
after_validation :reverse_geocode

With any geocoded objects, you can do the following:

obj.distance_to([43.9,-98.6])  # distance from obj to point
obj.bearing_to([43.9,-98.6])   # bearing from obj to point
obj.bearing_from(obj2)         # bearing from obj2 to obj

The bearing_from/to methods take a single argument which can be: a [lat,lon] array, a geocoded object, or a geocodable address (string). The distance_from/to methods also take a units argument (:mi, :km, or :nm for nautical miles). See Distance and Bearing below for more info.

One More Thing for MongoDB!

Before you can call geocoded_by you'll need to include the necessary module using one of the following:

include Geocoder::Model::Mongoid
include Geocoder::Model::MongoMapper

Latitude/Longitude Order in MongoDB

Everywhere coordinates are passed to methods as two-element arrays, Geocoder expects them to be in the order: [lat, lon]. However, as per the GeoJSON spec, MongoDB requires that coordinates be stored longitude-first ([lon, lat]), so internally they are stored "backwards." Geocoder's methods attempt to hide this, so calling obj.to_coordinates (a method added to the object by Geocoder via geocoded_by) returns coordinates in the conventional order:

obj.to_coordinates  # => [37.7941013, -122.3951096] # [lat, lon]

whereas calling the object's coordinates attribute directly (obj.coordinates by default) returns the internal representation which is probably the reverse of what you want:

obj.coordinates     # => [-122.3951096, 37.7941013] # [lon, lat]

So, be careful.

Use Outside of Rails

To use Geocoder with ActiveRecord and a framework other than Rails (like Sinatra or Padrino), you will need to add this in your model before calling Geocoder methods:

extend Geocoder::Model::ActiveRecord

Geospatial Database Queries

For ActiveRecord models:

To find objects by location, use the following scopes:

Venue.near('Omaha, NE, US')                   # venues within 20 miles of Omaha
Venue.near([40.71, -100.23], 50)              # venues within 50 miles of a point
Venue.near([40.71, -100.23], 50, units: :km)  # venues within 50 kilometres of a point
Venue.geocoded                                # venues with coordinates
Venue.not_geocoded                            # venues without coordinates

With geocoded objects you can do things like this:

if obj.geocoded?
  obj.nearbys(30)                       # other objects within 30 miles
  obj.distance_from([40.714,-100.234])  # distance from arbitrary point to object
  obj.bearing_to("Paris, France")       # direction from object to arbitrary point
end

For MongoDB-backed models:

Please do not use Geocoder's near method. Instead use MongoDB's built-in geospatial query language, which is faster. Mongoid also provides a DSL for geospatial queries.

Geocoding HTTP Requests

Geocoder adds location and safe_location methods to the standard Rack::Request object so you can easily look up the location of any HTTP request by IP address. For example, in a Rails controller or a Sinatra app:

# returns Geocoder::Result object
result = request.location

The location method is vulnerable to trivial IP address spoofing via HTTP headers. If that's a problem for your application, use safe_location instead, but be aware that safe_location will not try to trace a request's originating IP through proxy headers; you will instead get the location of the last proxy the request passed through, if any (excepting any proxies you have explicitly whitelisted in your Rack config).

Note that these methods will usually return nil in test and development environments because things like "localhost" and "0.0.0.0" are not geocodable IP addresses.

Geocoding Service ("Lookup") Configuration

Geocoder supports a variety of street and IP address geocoding services. The default lookups are :nominatim for street addresses and :ipinfo_io for IP addresses. Please see the API Guide for details on specific geocoding services (not all settings are supported by all services).

To create a Rails initializer with sample configuration:

rails generate geocoder:config

Some common options are:

# config/initializers/geocoder.rb
Geocoder.configure(
  # street address geocoding service (default :nominatim)
  lookup: :yandex,

  # IP address geocoding service (default :ipinfo_io)
  ip_lookup: :maxmind,

  # to use an API key:
  api_key: "...",

  # geocoding service request timeout, in seconds (default 3):
  timeout: 5,

  # set default units to kilometers:
  units: :km,

  # caching (see Caching section below for details):
  cache: Redis.new,
  cache_options: {
    expiration: 1.day, # Defaults to `nil`
    prefix: "another_key:" # Defaults to `geocoder:`
  }
)

Please see lib/geocoder/configuration.rb for a complete list of configuration options. Additionally, some lookups have their own special configuration options which are directly supported by Geocoder. For example, to specify a value for Google's bounds parameter:

# with Google:
Geocoder.search("Middletown", bounds: [[40.6,-77.9], [39.9,-75.9]])