Wunderground API - country/state/city mix issue - json

I'm using Google Maps Place API restricted to cities research, hence I get city, state and country plus conditions and forecast10day Wunderground API.
It seems sometimes I've issues building the Wunderground API endpoint.
When I have a city available in just one country, I've this endpoint:
http://api.wunderground.com/api/{KEY}/conditions/q/IT/Milan.json
and it works like a charm.
When I know the city I'm searching for is available in many countries, I add the "state" value to the endpoint, like this:
http://api.wunderground.com/api/{KEY}/conditions/q/US/PA/Lancaster.json
The issue comes when I search for New Delhi in India (and at this point I'm afraid also for other cities):
http:// api.wunderground.com/api/{KEY}/conditions/q/IN/DL/NewDelhi.json
In this case the response is this:
"error": {
"type": "querynotfound",
"description": "No cities match your search query"
}
But If I call conditions/ for New Delhi in India via "zmw" parameter
http://api.wunderground.com/api/{KEY}/conditions/q/zmw:00000.1.42182.json
I see this in "display_location" object:
"city":"New Delhi / Safdarjung",
"state":"DL",
"state_name":"India",
"country":"IN"
So, it seems that formally my endpoint is right.
What am I going wrong in?
PS: I'm using Google Maps Place API 'cause it's also UI ready. :)

I've contacted the Wunderground tech support.
Well - as they told me - their API is a little bit inconsistent, so for places outside of US, the best solution is to make an API call via lat/lng values, so to ensure always the same response structure.
For me it has been possible 'cause via Google Maps Places I save also lat/lng values for the city I'm searching for.
So, you can build this endpoint:
https://api.wunderground.com/api/{KEY}/conditions/q/{lat},{lng}.json
and it works like a charm!

Related

Google geocoding API returns ZERO_RESULTS for postal code

I am trying to geocode user entered data using the Google maps API, and got an error for the Australian postal code "2010"
maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?components=country:AU|postal_code:2010
However, if I search in Google maps, I get a result. Am I doing something wrong in my request?
Your request is completely OK, but unfortunately, Google experience issues with searching 4-digit postal codes. This bug has already been reported in Google issue tracker and you can see it here:
4-digit postal codes are hard to geocode (AT, AU, BE, DK, NZ, SI)
I would suggest starring the bug to add your vote and subscribe to further notifications from Google.
Also you can see that suggested workaround by Google is using place autocomplete request with types (region) and country components filter.
So, in your case you can run the following query
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?input=2010&types=(regions)&components=country%3AAU&key=YOUR_API_KEY
It will return a place ID for postal code 2010: ChIJ3QyubXuuEmsREIe6P2t9ARw
And you can use geocoding with place ID to get required information
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?place_id=ChIJ3QyubXuuEmsREIe6P2t9ARw&key=YOUR_API_KEY
I hope this helps!
I experienced a similar issue periodically, when geocoding US zip-codes. Appending the country name after the zip-code seemed to fix the problem. So, instead of 60162 use 60162 USA.
When a URL is opened in the browser based on its IP context, it identifies the country and automatically deduces the query format for a zip code is 99.999-99.
The format above is for Brazil, but there are different standards for each country such as USA and Portugal.
One solution when calling an API via CURL, either by code or by terminal, include the "&components = country: US" parameter, changing the "US" country code to what you want to filter.
The Google API returns ZERO_RESULTS for safety, because a search would be too slow and could do a global search worldwide and not just the country. For performance and speed reasons, Google creates this automatic ID for help, but unfortunately is not provided to developers about this process.
Good luck!

Google Geocoding API no longer displays localities every time

I'm a french developer and I have question about GMAP Geocoding API.
I'm on a new website work, which use this API.
The Geocoding API is used to get geocoded boundaries of french cities when user enter a french postal code.
So I request the API by this URL : https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=MY_ZIP_CODE&components=country:fr&key=my_key
In France, sometimes there is multiple cities for one postal code.
The default city is written in the JSON in address_components, "types" : [ "locality", "political" ] and all the cities are writtent in "postcode_localities".
(have an example in screenshot).
Last week, everything was working good.
But today, I've got a big probleme... When I use postal code (69510, 69310, 69600, etc....) multiple cities or alone city aren't no longer displayed.... But it works good for "69530".
It's embarassing for me because the website I'm bulding use the postal code to do a geolocated search with km radius...
Do you know if this API was update ?
I've search on Google.... But I've never find an answer.
Thanks in advance for your help !!
Have a nice day
My screenshot that show the API JSON answer
I was experiencing this problem as well yesterday. #xomena was right.
They updated their API at the end of November/beginning of December, and started more strictly encouraging best practices – using the Geocoding API for complete postal code strings (for example, “48 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont, NSW, Australia”), and the Places API for more ambiguous addresses and semantic locations, including businesses and points of interest.
Specifically their blog post said:
Future Changes to Geocoding API
We plan to roll out an update to the Geocoding API at the end of November 2016 that will increase the difference between Geocoding and Places performance for ambiguous and unambiguous queries. This change will improve the quality of Geocoding results for unambiguous queries, but will be more likely to return ZERO_RESULTS for ambiguous or incomplete queries where the Geocoding API was unable to find a high quality result.
If you are already using the above best practices, you should see an improvement in your Geocoding API results. If you are currently using the Geocoding API for incomplete or ambiguous queries, or for queries that may contain non-address information such as business names or apartment numbers, we recommend that you switch to the Places API instead, as it is likely to give better quality results for your use case.
Try using the Place Search API instead! https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/search
Please file a bug in the Google Maps API issue tracker.
This is not related to the new geocoder, you'll see that adding new_forward_geocoder=false to your requests makes no difference.
The postcode_localities field is never exposed in Places API.
I am experiencing the same problem as described by #Jean-Baptiste.
I opened an issue : http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=11087
Thanks for your answers.
That's true, the Places API can't give an autocompletion and the Autocomplete API doesn't give me satisfaction.
I've change my JS API parser and I get geocoding datas even if the postcode localities exists. If the zip code exists, so the geocoding datas exist.
That's a solution.... The visitor knows the zip code of the city where he lives. And for a major part of cities, the zip code is ok.
I saw that www.booking.com has the same problem...
Screenshot of the same problem on booking.com
That's solved for me ;-)
Thanks !!

Google Geocode api returning incorrect result for a particular address

When I try to geocode one of the adress using Google geocode api, Google api returns an incorrect location.
search address : republic of estonia
result from google api: spain
I am using javascript Google api to geocode the address. For some other location the result is correct but for above address its incorrect.
If we enter below url in browser, we get the JSON back and it is showing result somewhere in Spain rather than showing result in Estonia.
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=republic%20of%20estonia
I tried same addres in maps.google.com and it takes me to correct location.
Have a look at the Estonia country feature in Map Maker:
https://www.google.com/mapmaker?iwloc=0_0&fmi=0_0&gw=39&fid=5085290329182063613:4677726785527621059&dtab=overview&ll=58.620408,24.93212&spn=3.101226,8.668213&z=7&lyt=large_map_v3&htll=58.560236,25.449737&hyaw=278.7642140009582
If you check the list of names for this feature, you will see that there is no 'Republic of Estonia' in the list. The name is simply 'Estonia'.
The request for 'Estonia' works as expected:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=estonia&key=YOUR_API_KEY
If you believe that 'Republic of Estonia' must be in the list of the names please Send a feedback (bottom right corner) to Google from this page
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Estonia/#58.7223142,23.1414399,7z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4692949c82a04bfd:0x40ea9fba4fb425c3!8m2!3d58.595272!4d25.013607?hl=en
Google assumed you were looking for "Calle Estonia" or "Estonia Street".
You should request that Google add "Republic of Estonia" to their list of spaces. Google, and most other mapping services, only have "Estonia" or "EST" in their list of places.
Also, you may want to use a different API if you need to get an accurate answer. Google is really good, but Google tries to "guess" what you mean and always gives you a result. But, a service like SmartyStreets matches searches to databases of addresses (so if the search is not a "real" place, it will tell you).
(Full disclosure: I have worked for SmartyStreets.)

Is there any Google API to check if an input is a city or not?

Is there any Google API / classes, that can be used to check if a text input is a city or not a city?
I'm developing a real estate iOS app. My app uses GoogleMapSDK for iOS v1.8.1.
if you are just after US cities , there are many places on the internet that you can get every city and zip code for free - like the US Post Office. If you can't store all that or don't want to and really want to use Google - then the exact API you are looking for does not exist. BUT you can actually get the info you want out of the Google API, it will just take some work. It is easy to send the input to Google Geocoding API, then parse the response and see if the response city matches what the user entered. I know... this is not ideal, but there are ways to make it look like it's working the way you want from the user's point of view even though the exact API doesn't exist.
Use place/autocomplete/json API:
It gives a list of response based on query
Simply add "types=(cities)" to your query and Google will return you a list of cities
Use geocode/json API
Good tool to get GPS location from an address (eg. New York)
Simply check the "types" field returned from API, check if it's "locality" or "administrative_area_level_3"
Note: two exceptions are Hong Kong and Macau, MO both are treated as "country" but they are cities

Google maps GeoCode API doesn't return any result at all?

This is weird. When I search something like "The New York Palace Hotel,America,New York" in Google maps app's search box I get exactly the hotel on the map.
However When I use the maps API,
A GET at http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=The%20New%20York%20Palace%20Hotel,America,New%20York&sensor=true
I get ZERO results in the response.
It doesn't even give New York as the option in search results.
I am making an app where I use this API to get the lat-long for user provided address.
Now, I don't know why this Google maps API doesn't work the way the Google maps app works.
BUT I wanted to know, is there a way to search and provide Google maps API these search terms as meaningful words where instead of taking whole string as one parameter it knows which city I am searching and which Address I ams searching.
If not, then only option left with me will be to Once the first results fails I make another query for city name only.
recently, i was given a similar task, and came to know the api works reverse... i.e.. we can get address for lat lon that we provide.. and that too has its own restrictions (i.e.. no.of addresses resolved per request, mostly some 2500 address per day something...)....here you can get some info over that...
You are using the Geocoding API. "The New York Palace Hotel,America,New York" is not an address, it is a "place". The Places API might be a better option.
Example of your query using the (javascript version of) the Places API