A good google.maps geolocation api?

Question

Is there a google maps api that will allow you to pass in a location name and it will return coordinates that point to the location on googlemaps?

Answer 1

Here is the The Google Geocoding API

Here is a example request:

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=Berlin&sensor=false

You can filter the result: for geometry/location/lat and lng

<GeocodeResponse>
  <status>OK</status>
    <result>
    <type>locality</type>
    <type>political</type>
    <formatted_address>Berlin, Deutschland</formatted_address>
    […]
    <geometry>
      <location>
        <lat>52.5234051</lat>
        <lng>13.4113999</lng>
      </location>
      <location_type>APPROXIMATE</location_type>
      <viewport>[…]</viewport>
      <bounds>[…]</bounds>
    </geometry>
  </result>
</GeocodeResponse>

Answer 2

Yup, need to use reverse geolocation. You can send an address or location string and it will give you an array of the possible lat/Long coordinates for it. These are GeocoderResults and normally the first one is what you want. Like, if you wanted the USA you could do

geocoder.geocode( {'address': 'USA' }, function(results, status) {
  response($.map(results, function(item) {
    var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng( item.geometry.location.lat(), item.geometry.location.lng()); 
    //Do some action with the provided latlng
  }));
});

Answer 3

Mappy also provide a same free service. Have a look to mappy.com and search for rest api.