What is a "geoparser?"

According to Wikipedia, geoparsing is the process of converting free-text descriptions of places (such as "Springfield") into unambiguous geographic identifiers (such as lat-lon coordinates). A geoparser is a tool that helps in this process. Geoparsing goes beyond geocoding in that, rather than analyzing structured location references like mailing addresses and numerical coordinates, geoparsing handles ambiguous place names in unstructured text.

Geoparser.io works best on complete sentences in English, like those shown in the example inputs below. If you have a very short text, such as a partial address like "Auckland New Zealand," you probably want to use a geocoder tool instead of a geoparser.

API basics

API Endpoint URI: https://geoparser.io/api/geoparser
Request Protocol: HTTPS POST
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8
Response Format: GeoJSON
Authentication: authorization token (apiKey must be passed in HTTP request header, see examples below)

Example request #1

Notes:
  • Piping the output to python -mjson.tool pretty-prints the JSON response, but is certainly not required.
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • Protip: use Jersey as the HTTP request client, Jackson to deserialize the GeoJSON response, and perhaps something like geojson-jackson if you want POJOs
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • We strongly recommend using the very excellent Python Requests library, which you may first need to install with $ pip install requests.
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • An open source R package developed by Maëlle Salmon for the Geoparser.io API is available here: https://github.com/masalmon/geoparser
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.
Notes:
  • The maximum size of a request header is currently set to 8 KB, but this limit may be increased in the future to accommodate the submission of larger documents.

Example response #1

Notes:

Example request #2

Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
  • Piping the output to python -mjson.tool pretty-prints the JSON response, but is certainly not required.
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
  • Protip: use Jersey as the HTTP request client, Jackson to deserialize the GeoJSON response, and perhaps something like geojson-jackson if you want POJOs
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
  • We strongly recommend using the very excellent Python Requests library, which you may first need to install with $ pip install requests.
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).
  • An open source R package developed by Maëlle Salmon for the Geoparser.io API is available here: https://github.com/masalmon/geoparser
Notes:
  • Here we see a slightly larger inputText this time, adapted from Wikipedia (used & redistributed under a CC BY-SA license).

Example response #2

Notes:

Acknowledgements

Geoparser.io uses the GeoNames.org geographical database as its primary source of gazetteer data. GeoNames.org was founded by Marc Wick, is maintained by the GeoNames Team, and is a project of Unxos GmbH, Switzerland. The GeoNames.org gazetteer contains data from dozens of sources and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. For use in Geoparser.io, several modifications were made to address data quality issues and missing records in the GeoNames.org material.

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