Place geocoding

Place geocoding lets you retrieve an address from a place ID.

Place IDs uniquely identify a place in the Google Places database and on Google Maps. Retrieve place IDs when you Geocode an address. You can also retrieve a place ID from many other APIs, such as Place Details (New), Text Search (New), and Nearby Search (New).

Place geocoding requests

A place geocoding request is an HTTP GET request in the form:

https://geocode.googleapis.com/v4beta/geocode/places/PLACE_ID

Where PLACE_ID contains the place ID of the location of interest.

Pass all other parameters as URL parameters or, for parameters such as the API key or field mask, in headers as part of the GET request. For example:

https://geocode.googleapis.com/v4beta/geocode/places/ChIJj61dQgK6j4AR4GeTYWZsKWw?key=API_KEY

Or in a curl command:

curl -X GET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H "X-Goog-Api-Key: API_KEY" \
"https://geocode.googleapis.com/v4beta/geocode/places/ChIJj61dQgK6j4AR4GeTYWZsKWw"

Use OAuth to make a request

Geocoding API v4 supports OAuth 2.0 for authentication. To use OAuth with the Geocoding API, the OAuth token must be assigned the correct scope. Geocoding API supports the following scopes for use with place geocoding:

• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/maps-platform.geocode — Use with all Geocoding API endpoints.
• https://www.googleapis.com/auth/maps-platform.geocode.place — Use only with GeocodePlace for place geocoding.

Also, you can use the general https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform scope for all Geocoding API endpoints. That scope is useful during development, but not production, because it is a general scope that allows access to all endpoints.

For more information and examples, see Use OAuth.

Place geocoding responses

Place geocoding returns a GeocodeResult object that represents the place corresponding to the place ID.

The complete JSON object is in the form:

{
  "place": "//places.googleapis.com/places/ChIJj61dQgK6j4AR4GeTYWZsKWw",
  "placeId": "ChIJj61dQgK6j4AR4GeTYWZsKWw",
  "location": {
    "latitude": 37.4220541,
    "longitude": -122.08532419999999
  },
  "granularity": "ROOFTOP",
  "viewport": {
    "low": {
      "latitude": 37.4209489697085,
      "longitude": -122.08846930000001
    },
    "high": {
      "latitude": 37.4236469302915,
      "longitude": -122.0829156
    }
  },
  "formattedAddress": "1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA",
  "postalAddress": {
    "regionCode": "US",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "postalCode": "94043",
    "administrativeArea": "CA",
    "locality": "Mountain View",
    "addressLines": [
      "1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy"
    ]
  },
  "addressComponents": [
    {
      "longText": "1600",
      "shortText": "1600",
      "types": [
        "street_number"
      ]
    },
    {
      "longText": "Amphitheatre Parkway",
      "shortText": "Amphitheatre Pkwy",
      "types": [
        "route"
      ],
      "languageCode": "en"
    },
    {
      "longText": "Mountain View",
      "shortText": "Mountain View",
      "types": [
        "locality",
        "political"
      ],
      "languageCode": "en"
    },
    {
      "longText": "Santa Clara County",
      "shortText": "Santa Clara County",
      "types": [
        "administrative_area_level_2",
        "political"
      ],
      "languageCode": "en"
    },
    {
      "longText": "California",
      "shortText": "CA",
      "types": [
        "administrative_area_level_1",
        "political"
      ],
      "languageCode": "en"
    },
    {
      "longText": "United States",
      "shortText": "US",
      "types": [
        "country",
        "political"
      ],
      "languageCode": "en"
    },
    {
      "longText": "94043",
      "shortText": "94043",
      "types": [
        "postal_code"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "types": [
    "establishment",
    "point_of_interest"
  ]
}

Required parameters

• place — The place ID of the place for which you want to obtain the human-readable address. The place ID is a unique identifier that can be used with other Google APIs. For example, you can use the placeID returned by the Roads API to get the address for a snapped point. For more information about place IDs, see the Place IDs.

Optional parameters

• languageCode

  The language in which to return results.

  • See the list of supported languages. Google often updates the supported languages, so this list may not be exhaustive.
  • If languageCode is not supplied, the API defaults to en. If you specify an invalid language code, the API returns an INVALID_ARGUMENT error.
  • The API does its best to provide a street address that is readable for both the user and locals. To achieve that goal, it returns street addresses in the local language, transliterated to a script readable by the user if necessary, observing the preferred language. All other addresses are returned in the preferred language. Address components are all returned in the same language, which is chosen from the first component.
  • If a name is not available in the preferred language, the API uses the closest match.
  • The preferred language has a small influence on the set of results that the API chooses to return, and the order in which they are returned. The geocoder interprets abbreviations differently depending on language, such as the abbreviations for street types, or synonyms that may be valid in one language but not in another.

• regionCode

  The region code as a two-character CLDR code value. There is no default value. Most CLDR codes are identical to ISO 3166-1 codes.

  When geocoding an address, forward geodcoding, this parameter can influence, but not fully restrict, results from the service to the specified region. When geocoding a location or a place, reverse geocoding or place geocoding, this parameter can be used to format the address. In all cases, this parameter can affect results based on applicable law.