Addresses represent a physical place. They’re meant to be interpreted by people and help guide navigation of the built environment. Addresses represent a geographical place but lack geographic data.
The package {arcgisgeocode} enables you to search for an address
(geocode), reverse geocode, find candidate matches, get suggestions, and
batch geocode. Geocoding is the process of converting text to an address
and a location.
- Address geocoding, also known as forward geocoding, is the process of converting text for an address to a complete address with a location.
- Place geocoding is the process of searching for addresses for businesses, administrative locations, and geographic features.
- Reverse geocoding is the process of converting a point to an address or place.
- Batch geocoding, also known as bulk geocoding, is the process of converting a list of addresses or place names to a set of complete addresses with locations.
Licensing considerations
Many features of the ArcGIS World Geocoder are provided for free such as forward geocoding, reverse geocoding, and place search. However, storing results is not free. Additionally, the bulk geocoding functionality requires a developer account or available credits.
In order to store results, each function has an argument for_storage
which should be set to TRUE if you intend to store the results.
To learn more about free and paid geocoding operations refer to the storage parameter documentation.
| Function | Description | Free |
|---|---|---|
find_address_candidates() |
Finds up to 50 location candidates based on a provided address. This function is vectorized to work with many addresses at a time. | ✅ |
reverse_geocode() |
Returns an address based on the provided coordinate. This function is vectorized to work with many locations at a time. | ✅ |
suggest_places() |
Returns possible POI information based on a location and a search phrase. This function is not vectorized. | ✅ |
geocoded_addresses() |
Bulk geocodes addresses returning a single location per address. Use this for highly performant and scalable address geocoding. | ❌ |
Get started
To start geocoding with the R-ArcGIS Bridge, install the R package from R-universe.
install.packages("arcgisgeocode", repos = c("https://r-arcgis.r-universe.dev", "https://cloud.r-project.org"))# Load the library
library(arcgisgeocode)Geocode an address
Perform single address geocoding using the find_address_candidates()
function. Limit the number of results using the max_locations
argument.
loc <- find_address_candidates(
"501 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30312", max_locations = 1
)
loc[, 1:8]#> Simple feature collection with 1 feature and 8 fields
#> Geometry type: POINT
#> Dimension: XY
#> Bounding box: xmin: -84.37108 ymin: 33.75396 xmax: -84.37108 ymax: 33.75396
#> Geodetic CRS: WGS 84
#> input_id result_id loc_name status score match_addr
#> 1 1 NA World M 100 501 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta, Georgia, 30312
#> long_label short_label geometry
#> 1 501 Edgewood Ave SE, Atlanta, GA, 30312, USA 501 Edgewood Ave SE POINT (-84.37108 33.75396)
Reverse geocode
From a location, find its corresponding address using
reverse_geocode().
reverse_geocode(c(-84.371, 33.753))#> Simple feature collection with 1 feature and 22 fields
#> Geometry type: POINT
#> Dimension: XY
#> Bounding box: xmin: -84.37103 ymin: 33.75322 xmax: -84.37103 ymax: 33.75322
#> Geodetic CRS: WGS 84
#> # A data frame: 1 × 23
#> match_addr long_label short_label addr_type type_field place_name add_num address block sector neighborhood district
#> * <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 39 Daniel … 39 Daniel… 39 Daniel … PointAdd… "" "" 39 39 Dan… "" "" "" ""
#> # ℹ 11 more variables: city <chr>, metro_area <chr>, subregion <chr>, region <chr>, region_abbr <chr>,
#> # territory <chr>, postal <chr>, postal_ext <chr>, country_name <chr>, country_code <chr>, geometry <POINT [°]>