Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding with geobase using Python

Geocoding and reverse geocoding are essential techniques in geographical information systems (GIS). Geocoding converts addresses into geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), while reverse geocoding converts geographic coordinates back into a human-readable address. In this blog, we’ll explore how to perform both tasks using Python and store the results in a geobase database.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following requirements fullfilled:

• db_connection_string : can be found in your project settings.

Creating connection with geobase

Navigate to “Project Settings” then copy the connection string user tab “URI” in Connection Portion, then connection will be created with geobase using “geopy”

connection_string = "postgresql://username:password@serveraddress:port/database"
conn = psycopg2.connect(connection_string)

Geocoding Addresses

We will use the “geopy” library to geocode addresses into latitude and longitude. Here’s a Python function to achieve this:

import psycopg2
from geopy.geocoders import Nominatim
 
def geocode_address(address):
    geolocator = Nominatim(user_agent="geoencoder")
    location = geolocator.geocode(address)
    if location:
        return location.latitude, location.longitude
    else:
        return None, None

Reverse Geocoding Addresses

We can also reverse geocode latitude and longitude to get an address. Here’s how you can do it using geopy:

def reverse_geocode(lat, lon):
    geolocator = Nominatim(user_agent="geoencoder")
    location = geolocator.reverse((lat, lon), exactly_one=True)
    if location:
        return location.address
    else:
        return None

Storing Geocoded Data in geobase

Next, we insert the geocoded data into the geobase table.

def insert_location(address, latitude, longitude):
    try:
        cur = conn.cursor()
        
        # Insert data into locations table
        cur.execute(f"""
            INSERT INTO geocoding_demo (address, latitude, longitude, geom) 
            VALUES ('{address}', {latitude}, {longitude}, ST_SetSRID(ST_MakePoint({longitude}, {latitude}), 4326))
        """)
        conn.commit()
        cur.close()
        print(f"Inserted: {address} -> ({latitude}, {longitude})")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Failed to insert data: {e}")

The resultanl table will look like this: