Geospatial Data

Reverse geocoding

Reverse geocoding is the process of bringing geographic coordinates (and also, in our case, the relation ID) into a description of the location. In other words, this is the process that is the reverse of the geocoding process. This function can be useful to get full geographic information about a certain place, if you have its coordinates or relation ID.

With the reverse command you can use following parameters:

Parameter	Description
relation	relation ID. If used, system will search by relation ID regardless of other parameters sent. Optional parameter.
lat	Latitude. Optional parameter.
lon	Longitude. Optional parameter.

Sample of reverse geocoding by relation ID.

Digger code
Log
Data source

    # SWITCHING TO THE GEO CONTEXT
- geo:
    provider: osm
    do:
    # Get information about place by relation ID
    - reverse:
        relation: 62366
        do:

Time	Level	Message
2018-05-29 23:38:42:851	info	Stopped by exit command
2018-05-29 23:38:42:835	debug	Page content: ...
2018-05-29 23:38:42:056	info	Retrieving page (GET): https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse?osm_type=R&osm_id=62366&format=json
2018-05-29 23:38:42:047	debug	Getting reverse geo information by relation ID: 62366
2018-05-29 23:38:42:038	debug	Setting up geo provider: osm
2018-05-29 23:38:42:029	info	Starting scrape
2018-05-29 23:38:42:002	debug	Setting up default proxy
2018-05-29 23:38:41:993	debug	Setting up surf
2018-05-29 23:38:41:956	info	Starting digger: 1 [2158]

            <html>
<head></head>
<body>
<body_safe>
<address>
<continent>Europe</continent>
<country>Deutschland</country>
<country_code>de</country_code>
<state>Thüringen</state>
</address>
<boundingbox>50.2043467</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>51.6489423</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>9.8767193</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>12.6539178</boundingbox>
<display_name>Thüringen, Deutschland, Europe</display_name>
<lat>50.7333163</lat>
<licence>Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright</licence>
<lon>11.0747905</lon>
<osm_id>62366</osm_id>
<osm_type>relation</osm_type>
<place_id>179115036</place_id>
</body_safe>
</body>
</html>

Sample of reverse geocoding by coordinates of the place.

Digger code
Log
Data source

        # SWITCHING TO THE GEO CONTEXT
- geo:
    provider: osm
    do:
    # Get data about the place by coordinates
    - reverse:
        lat: 41.8775257
        lon: -87.62955615
        do:

Time	Level	Message
2018-05-29 23:59:30:408	info	Stopped by exit command
2018-05-29 23:59:30:394	debug	Page content: ...
2018-05-29 23:59:29:683	info	Retrieving page (GET): https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse?lat=41.8775257&lon=-87.62955615&format=json
2018-05-29 23:59:29:674	debug	Getting reverse geo information by lat/lon: 41.8775257/-87.62955615
2018-05-29 23:59:29:666	debug	Setting up geo provider: osm
2018-05-29 23:59:29:657	info	Starting scrape
2018-05-29 23:59:29:631	debug	Setting up default proxy
2018-05-29 23:59:29:617	debug	Setting up surf
2018-05-29 23:59:29:585	info	Starting digger: 1 [2158]

            <html>
<head></head>
<body>
<body_safe>
<address>
<building>Monadnock Building</building>
<city>Chicago</city>
<country>United States of America</country>
<country_code>us</country_code>
<county>Cook County</county>
<house_number>53</house_number>
<neighbourhood>Loop</neighbourhood>
<postcode>60604</postcode>
<road>West Jackson Boulevard</road>
<state>Illinois</state>
</address>
<boundingbox>41.876976</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>41.8780754</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>-87.6297057</boundingbox>
<boundingbox>-87.6294066</boundingbox>
<display_name>Monadnock Building, 53, West Jackson Boulevard, Loop,
Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, 60604, United States of America</display_name>
<lat>41.8775257</lat>
<licence>Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. https://osm.org/copyright</licence>
<lon>-87.62955615</lon>
<osm_id>73671128</osm_id>
<osm_type>way</osm_type>
<place_id>85949297</place_id>
</body_safe>
</body>
</html>

Next we will learn how to normalize postal addresses and parse them to the parts.