How to get Latitude/Longitude from an address (or Geocoding ) using PHP

While Google’s documents for maps API does good job in showing how to get lat/long from an address in JavaScript they do not really show any example of doing the same with PHP.

 

So to make you life simple here is a small script in PHP that does that.

 

 

$geocode=file_get_contents('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=573/1,+Jangli+Maharaj+Road,+Deccan+Gymkhana,+Pune,+Maharashtra,+India&sensor=false');

$output= json_decode($geocode);

$lat = $output->results[0]->geometry->location->lat;
$long = $output->results[0]->geometry->location->lng;

 

The line above makes a request to Google maps API. Passes the address, and receives the response in JSON format.

The URL has following options

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/output?parameters

where output can be 1) JSON or 2) XML

For more details about parameters check out the Google’s geocoding documentation.

Comments

24 responses to “How to get Latitude/Longitude from an address (or Geocoding ) using PHP”

  1. Harish shilamkar Avatar

    fanatastic work my friend…. its very usefull blog for all web developers specially PHP developers..u said blog is under construction… is any help required? i know little wordpress..

  2. elali Avatar
    elali

    Thanx so much, this was extremely helpful

  3. sameer Avatar

    Hi,

    Thanks you very much

    Have dream day.

  4. Dan Avatar

    I have been searching and searching trying to find a simple geocoder means for taking a city and state address and geocoding it for the latitude and longitude in PHP. I was about to give up and use the javascript, but then landed to your wonderful page.

    Thank you!

  5. Vipul Avatar

    Hi,

    I put this code in one of my php file but its give me “no result”.

    Any additional js requires to put.Help is appreciate.

  6. AL Avatar
    AL

    Great piece of codes.

    But when I tried to pass the address with special characters, for example German characters, it will not return any result. It returned as “Invalid Request”. Anyone knows how to pass special characters in address?

    Thanks.

    1. surendra Avatar
      surendra

      pass the special characters in UTF-8 encoding.

  7. Dhanesh Avatar
    Dhanesh

    How can i identify a specific location is included in a kml file of google earth?.Is any code for that using php

  8. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Thank you so much for this code. After spending so long I managed to find your site and your example works within seconds! Amazing and thanks again.

  9. BobS Avatar
    BobS

    Unfortunately – it gives incorrect coordinates…
    I was hoping that it would be accurate!

  10. Vaishakh Avatar

    Great work dude , however Google Maps has a request rate of only 2000 queries a day . I have written a similar code that gives me a geocoding
    rate of 50,000 queries a day . You can get the code at
    http://googlelatiude.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocode-address.html

  11. Vinay Avatar
    Vinay

    Thanks @vaishakh your blog was really helpful .

  12. nmnm Avatar

    $geocode=file_get_contents(‘http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=573/1,+Jangli+Maharaj+Road,+Deccan+Gymkhana,+Pune,+Maharashtra,+India&sensor=false’);

    $output= json_decode($geocode);

    $lat = $output->results[0]->geometry->location->lat;
    $long = $output->results[0]->geometry->location->lng;

  13. Johnson Obaro Isreal Avatar

    I paste The Code Into my PHP file How to Get Your Location Lat and Long . But It Did work It Shows Error= Fatal error: Call to undefined function json_decode() in C:apachefriendsxampphtdocsstudentPortaltest.php on line 4 please tell me what is wrong.

  14. sigristr Avatar

    Thanks. this is a very neat bit of code, though I had problems which led me to exploring parsing json – ruthlessly exploiting my php error log. After changing the file to a local one (generated by calling the google site from a browser with the request) to prove the principle, I discovered that, in my case, the single quotes round the URL had to be double. The hour was not wasted, as I learnt a lot abour json!

  15. rock Avatar

    how can we show the location on google map when visitor click on the address(address is coming from DB).when visitor click on the address,location should be shown on google map.Help is appreciated.

  16. […] Also, you can use Google Maps API to convert an address to the coordinates (AKA: geocoder. Also see using PHP to get Latitude/Longitude). Just be careful about the use and requests. They’re fussy about that. Otherwise, you can […]

  17. Stephane Avatar
    Stephane

    When i run this code on localhost there is no problem but when i put in online i’ve got the status: query_limit. in the google documentation i read that it only works with a google maps… someone nows more about it?

  18. Sandeep Yadav Avatar

    Hi,

    I tried this code to get latitude and longitude by address but it returns null in print_r($geocode).

    $geocode=file_get_contents(‘http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=573/1,+Jangli+Maharaj+Road,+Deccan+Gymkhana,+Pune,+Maharashtra,+India&sensor=false’);

    When i run url direct in browser its return array with values.
    In my server allow_url_fopen is set to ON.

    Please give some suggestion what to do?

    Thanks

    1. Mujeeb Avatar
      Mujeeb

      i think your code is divided into two lines in editor , Please make sure the whole URL appear in one line in your code.

      Thanks

  19. Sandeep Avatar

    Hi Check this script, that directly convert address to map using php.

    Check out this : http://tutorials4u.in/google-map-using-address-php/

  20. Mujeeb Avatar
    Mujeeb

    Hello Everyone, i am using above code and is working fine without app key but when i put my app key in URL , it does not return latLong . Please somebody help me with this.

    Thanks