It’s easy to convert a physical address, like 12 Main Street, into its latitude and longitude coordinates, but there are many situations where you might want to do the opposite: get the closest physical address of coordinates.
This process, called reverse geocoding, is accomplished by performing a geospatial proximity search of coordinates against a database of known locations to return the closest address. Using a specified distance, the search works by incrementally increasing the radius until a location is found or the maximum distance is reached.
Melissa’s Reverse GeoCoder API can be leveraged by developers to incorporate reverse geocoding into their applications that have access to location services with latitude and longitude information.
Some example use cases for the API include creating a mailing list in a specific radius, mobile apps that provide emergency and roadside assistance, or a store locator that finds the nearest branch to the user.
It supports a number of different request parameters, such as dist (maximum distance in miles), recs (the requested number of records), the desired format of the response (JSON or XML), and lat and long. Developers can also set a couple of different options for better filtering: IncludeApartments, IncludeEmptyLots, and IncludeUndeliverable.
The output will then include data like the street address, city of that address, latitude and longitude of the output address, distance in miles between the input coordinates and output coordinates, number of suites in a building, and suite name of the address returned.
It also returns an AddressKey, which can then be used by Melissa’s other APIs and services to acquire more information, such as RBDI (Residential/Business Delivery Indicator) or property information. Some of those other address related APIs include Global Address Verification, which verifies and standardizes mailing addresses; Cicero, which matches addresses to legislative districts; and Street Route, which provides estimated driving duration between two locations.
Melissa’s Reference Guide contains more information about the Reverse GeoCoder API, including example JSON and XML requests for a variety of use cases.
