Geocoding

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Jawg Places is based on Pelias which is a modern, geographic search service based entirely on open-source tools and powered by open data. Through a process known as geocoding, Jawg Places and Pelias allows you to use natural language to find a particular place by entering an address or the name of a landmark or business, and then translates the result into the geographic coordinates used by computers. We contribute to the Pelias project to improve it and offer you the best user experience. Want to know more about our partnership with Pelias ? Checkout our blog article Jawg x Pelias.

⚠️ Even if we are based on Pelias, you may notice some differences between Jawg Places and the raw Pelias project. We merge some of our technologies with the original project to improve our services.

Endpoint to use

https://api.jawg.io/places/v1/search?text=Paris&access-token=your-jawg-access-token
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scheme     domain    API  version path  query                 authentication token

Common search and geocoding terms

  • forward geocoding or geocoding - the process of converting an address or the name of a landmark or business into a latitude, longitude pair.
  • reverse geocoding - the process of converting a latitude, longitude pair into the name and address of the nearest place.
  • coarse geocoding - adds regions and administrative boundaries to the geocoding process. Coarse forward geocoding limits a search to a particular region, while coarse reverse geocoding converts a geographic coordinate pair into the administrative boundary hierarchy containing it, such as from the neighbourhood to the local administrative area, and on up to the country level.
  • administrative area or hierarchy - a catch-all term for any area that might sub-divide the world, such as a city, neighbourhood, country, continent, etc. Usually, but not always, these correspond to various government administrations, hence administrative area.
  • autocomplete - enables real-time feedback when entering text for a search, typically, where users start typing and a drop-down list appears where they can choose the term from the list below.
  • data source - the datasets available to Jawg Places.
  • focus - option to make places closer to a particular location be prioritized and appear higher in the search results list. After all nearby results have been found, additional results will come from the rest of the world, without any further location-based prioritization.
  • layer - types of places available to Pelias and arranged in a hierarchy, such as an address, a venue, a neighbourhood, or a country.
  • place search - get details on a place if you know the data source, the type of place (such as a venue or address), and the identification number.
  • structured geocoding - Assigns geographical coordinates to an address, venue, or other location type that has been broken up into its constituent parts.
  • bounding box - a rectangular area defined by two longitudes and two latitudes (the minimum and the maximum latitude, longitude).
  • latitude - the distance of a point north or south of the equator. In Pelias, latitudes are expressed in decimal degrees.
  • longitude - the distance of a point east or west. In Pelias, longitudes are in relation to the Prime Meridian and expressed in decimal degrees.

Documentation of Jawg Places