GeoDjango: Getting accurate device location with geoip2

Question

I am trying to get the users device location. But the geoip2 returns a location far away from users location (almost 20km-25km). When I connect my device through a mobile network it shows a different location when I connect my device with the wifi

First I am getting the users ip

def get_ip(request):
    xff = request.META.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR')
    
    if xff:
        ip = xff.split(',')[0]
    else:
        ip = request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR', None)
    return ip

But this gets the users private ip and the private ip is not in the country or city datasets so the geoip2 throws an error.

So I try to get the public ip address through a website

def get_ip(request):
    
    from requests import get
    ip = get('https://api.ipify.org').text
    
    if ip:
        return ip

Now i use geoip2 to get the users location data

def home(request,):
....
....
....
....
    from django.contrib.gis.geoip2 import GeoIP2
    g = GeoIP2()
    ip = get_ip(request)
    print(ip)

    country = g.country(ip)
    city = g.city(ip)
    print(country, city)
    lat, long = g.lat_lon(ip)
    print(lat, long)
...
...
...

Can you please suggest a better way or proper way to get the accurate location of the user?

GeoIP is never accurate, even if it was realtime. It has the location of the IP address where your device "gets on to the internet". Many providers first route you through their internal network before you get to the net. For example, I always show as in Frankfurt, whereas I'm in Berlin, hundreds of kilometres north. You will need to use the [Geolocation](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Geolocation_API/Using_the_Geolocation_API) browser interface to be more accurate. — , Nov 08 '20 at 07:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '20 at 07:15

Firstly you need to understand that geoip2 uses .dat/csv files which are nothing but a files containing ranges of IP address according to country/city/latitude-longitude. These files need to be updated on timely bases to have more sort of accurate data. Secondly if you do it using localhost the first code it will return this 127.0.0.1 IP address because you are getting your remote IP.

def home(request):
    xff = request.META.get('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR')
    if xff:
        ip = xff.split(',')[0]
        country = g.country(ip)
        city = g.city(ip)
        lat, long = g.lat_lon(ip)
    else:
        ip = request.META.get('REMOTE_ADDR', None)
        country = 'Your Country Name'
        city='Your City'
        lat,long = 'Your Latitude','Your Longitiude'
    print(country, city)
    print(lat, long)

This code will work with localhosts also so you wont get the IP error. And to get accurate locations update your dat/csv files

Well I hope the dataset are updated. As I am getting it from a genuine source. — Debopriyo Das, Nov 08 '20 at 07:27
@DebopriyoDas Yes so there might be problem with their dataset it may not accurate. Anyways there is no way to get 100% accurate data. If you want you can modify that file. If you find this answer as correct answer to your question so please mark this answer correct so this question can be closed. — Zahid Wadiwale, Nov 08 '20 at 09:52

GeoDjango: Getting accurate device location with geoip2

1 Answers1