On 20/11/2013 15:30, Alexander von Lünen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> you could use the Google Geocoding API:
> https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/
>
> This is a Web Service, which returns the coordinates for a place name
> as JSON or XML. I've seen people using the Google Maps Interface
> directly from Google Docs as well, i.e. you could list the place names
> your visitors come from in a spreadsheet and have these place names
> geocoded from Google Docs and mapped onto Google Maps. I am not a
> great fan of Google (don't like their terms and conditions) and I use
> more sophisticated GIS. If you don't like to use Google and are able
> (or have someone around you being able) to do some basic programming
> in Perl or Python etc, you could use the GeoNames service
> (www.geonames.org) to geocode the place names and then map it onto
> OpenStreetMap (www.openstreetmap.org).
I agree with your reservations about the Google Maps geocoding API. To
quote their conditions: "The Geocoding API may only be used in
conjunction with a Google map; geocoding results without displaying them
on a map is prohibited."
Which rather rules out storing the results as useful data and deploying
them in a variety of ways.
Geonames [1] provides a web service with a reasonably friendly XML
response format; the main problem is that their primary search is for a
single place keyword, so you get every place in the world with that name
(though you can apply a country code filter to narrow things down). I
have been driven to write a program which adds the hierarchical aspect
to Geonames searches [2]. It's Windows-only, but you're welcome to a
copy. (You need to register with Geonames - hence the 'username'
parameters - but it's free.)
OpenStreetMap provides the Nominatim geocoding service [2], which
returns OSM data including lat/long points.
Richard
[1] e.g.
http://api.geonames.org/search?style=short&name_equals=Newport&username=xxx&country=GB
[2] e.g.
http://light.demon.co.uk/scripts/getplaceurl.exe/?q=Newport,%20Essex&username=xxx
[3] e.g.
http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=Newport,%20Essex&format=xml&limit=100&countrycodes=gb&addressdetails=1&email=xxx@yyy
>
> Hope this helps,
> Alex
>
> On 20/11/2013 14:47, Emily Hicks wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Does anyone know of a good website or method online for mapping
>> visitors- e.g. I have lots of data from our visitors book about where
>> people come from, and would like to be able to input it somehow to
>> create me some useful statistics rather than working out something on
>> a spreadsheet.
>>
>> Many thanks
>> Emily
>>
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>
>
--
*Richard Light*
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