If I have a set of coordinates, how can I get the country, only with the Requests library?

Question

I need to get the country from which a set of coordinates are from: example:

coords=[41.902782, 12.496366.]


output:

Italy

I know that this can be made by using other libraries, but I need to know if there's a way to do it only with the requests library.(json is available too) Thanks.

Answer 1

As @Razdi has said, you will need an API that takes your coordinates and returns a location.

This is called reverse geocoding.

Think of the Requests library like a browser URL path. All it can do is get an address of a website. However, if the address is right, and expects certain parameters, then you can access values:

>>> import requests
>>> url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json'
>>> params = {'sensor': 'false', 'address': 'Mountain View, CA'}
>>> r = requests.get(url, params=params)
>>> results = r.json()['results']
>>> location = results[0]['geometry']['location']
>>> location['lat'], location['lng']

What you want is something like this:

import geocoder
g = geocoder.google([45.15, -75.14], method='reverse')

But you're not allowed to use the package... so you'll need to be more verbose:

import requests

def example():
    # grab some lat/long coords from wherever. For this example,
    # I just opened a javascript console in the browser and ran:
    #
    # navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(p) {
    #   console.log(p);
    # })
    #
    latitude = 35.1330343
    longitude = -90.0625056

    # Did the geocoding request comes from a device with a
    # location sensor? Must be either true or false.
    sensor = 'true'

    # Hit Google's reverse geocoder directly
    # NOTE: I *think* their terms state that you're supposed to
    # use google maps if you use their api for anything.
    base = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?"
    params = "latlng={lat},{lon}&sensor={sen}".format(
        lat=latitude,
        lon=longitude,
        sen=sensor
    )
    url = "{base}{params}".format(base=base, params=params)
    response = requests.get(url)
    return response.json()['results'][0]['formatted_address']

Code snippet taken and modified from here.