Geocode addresses

What is address geocoding?

Address geocoding, also known as forward geocoding, is the process of converting text for an address to a complete address with a location. For example, you can convert 1 Bridge St, Sydney, Australia to 1 Bridge St, Sydney, New South Wales, 2000.

You can use address search to:

• Geocode address text to a complete address.
• Find the location of an address.
• Provide a list of address candidates for an incomplete address.

How address geocoding works

You can geocode an address by making an HTTPS request to the geocoding service findAddressCandidates operation or by using client APIs. Specify the address, output data fields, and optionally, additional parameters to refine the search.

The more complete you can make the input address, the more likely the geocoding service will find an exact match. For example, "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20500".

To refine the search, you can provide additional parameters such as the location, search extent, country code, city, and neighborhood.

The geocoding service parses the address and uses all of the parameters to return a set of address candidates. Each candidate contains a full address, location, attributes, and a score of how well it matched. By default the address, score, and location are returned, but to return all of the data fields available, you can set the outFields parameter to *.

URL request

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https://geocode-api.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer/findAddressCandidates?address={searchText}&outFields={fieldList}&f=json&token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>

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https://geocode.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer/findAddressCandidates?address={searchText}&outFields={fieldList}&f=json&token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>

Required parameters

Key parameters

Additional parameters: Refine the search by using parameters such as location, searchExtent, neighborhood, city, and countryCode. Use langCode to return results in a specific language.

Storage parameter

If you need to store or persist the geocoding service results in any way, you are required to use the forStorage parameter.

Code examples

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      const geocodingServiceUrl = "https://geocode-api.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer";

      const params = {
        address: {
          "address": "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, DC"
        }
      }

      locator.addressToLocations(geocodingServiceUrl, params).then((results) => {
        showResult(results);
      });

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curl https://geocode-api.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer/findAddressCandidates \
-d 'f=pjson' \
-d 'address=1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, DC' \
-d 'token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>'

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{
  "spatialReference": {
    "wkid": 4326,
    "latestWkid": 4326
  },
  "candidates": [
    {
      "address": "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20500",
      "location": {
        "x": -77.036548499999995,
        "y": 38.89767599999999
      },
      "score": 100,

Tutorials

Search for an address

Convert an address or place to a location with the geocoding service.

JavaScript Kotlin.NETJava Qt Esri Leaflet MapLibre OpenLayers CesiumJS ArcGIS REST JS REST 

Reverse geocode

Get an address, business, or place from coordinates with the geocoding service.

JavaScript Esri Leaflet MapLibre OpenLayers CesiumJS REST 

Find place addresses

Find an address, business, or place with the geocoding service.

JavaScript Esri Leaflet MapLibre OpenLayers CesiumJS ArcGIS REST JS REST 

Display your location

Find and track your device location on a map.

JavaScript .NET Kotlin Swift Java Qt 

Services

API support

Tools