How to convert zipcode to longitude and latitude? - actionscript-3

Question

I want to find the longitude and latitude of place with a the help to a zipcode.
Can anyone tell me how to do that?
An example in actionscript what be very much helpful for me. Because i am making a project in Flex.
Regards
Zee

Answer 1

Do you have access to a long/lat database? if not, i believe you can use the google maps API to do that lookup.
Oh .. I just noticed Chris' answer. I am not familiar with geonames. You might also want to get familiar with "http://freegeographytools.com/" which has a ton of geocoding, gps, etc. resources for a whole range of projects.
Ahhh ... I just visited Eric's blog post. That is excellent! I will definitely hook up with google for more details in a future project.

Answer 2

If you are looking for on demand geocoding, use Google. They provide a simple pox web service version.
I wrote a blog about this a while back. Check out this link for step by step instructions for using this simple geocoding.
Cheers,
Eric

Answer 3

I got my solve you can also
function getLatLong($code) {
$mapsApiKey = 'ABQIAAAAsV7S85DtCo0H9T4zv19FoRTdT40ApbWAnDYRE0-JyP5I6Ha9-xT9G5hCQO5UtOKSH5M3qhp5OXiWaA';
$query = "http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/geo?q=".urlencode($code)."&output=json&key=".$mapsApiKey;
$data = file_get_contents($query);
// if data returned
if($data) {
// convert into readable format
$data = json_decode($data);
$long = $data->Placemark[0]->Point->coordinates[0];
$lat = $data->Placemark[0]->Point->coordinates[1];
return array('Latitude'=>$lat, 'Longitude'=>$long);
} else {
return false;
}
}

Answer 4

There are several places to get zip code databases, in several formats. Load it into your favorite RDBMS, and query away.
Alternatively, you can use someone else's web service to look up the value for you. Other answers have posted possible web services; also, geocoder.us appears to have support for ZIP code lookup now as well.

Answer 5

There is now a better solution for this using the most recent Google Maps API (v3). The following is a slightly modified example from multiple sources. I have to give most of the credit to them. It's PHP, using cURL to retrieve the data from Google, but you could also use Ajax.
function address_lookup($string){
$string = str_replace (" ", "+", urlencode($string));
$details_url = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=".$string."&sensor=false";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $details_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), true);
// If Status Code is ZERO_RESULTS, OVER_QUERY_LIMIT, REQUEST_DENIED or INVALID_REQUEST
if ($response['status'] != 'OK') {
return null;
}
$geometry = $response['results'][0]['geometry']['location'];
$array = array(
'lat' => $geometry['lat'],
'lng' => $geometry['lng'],
'state' => $response['results'][0]['address_components'][3]['short_name'],
'address' => $response['results'][0]['formatted_address']
);
return $array;
}
$zip= '01742';
$array = address_lookup($zip);
print_r($array);

Answer 6

The easiest way out is using GoogleMap Api. Say you have a zipcode in a varible $zipcode.
$latlongUrl = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?components=postal_code:'.$zipcode;
$data = file_get_contents($latlongUrl); // you will get string data
$data = (json_decode($data)); // convert it into object with json_decode
$location = ($data->results[0]->geometry->location); // get location object
$location is the object with Latitude and Longitude value.