Factual is a geographical database of places, services, points of interest and landmarks that is made available for free through their Application Programming Interface (API)
This post explains how to use a PHP library to access this database, the characteristics of the service, and the details on the content that can be retrieved from the Factual API.
A website with information of any kind about a certain geographical location might find interesting to include a list of places, points of interest, businesses and services available in that area.
Yelp is one of the possible choices, together with Google Places, Facebook, etc. for a service provider that implements an API that can be used to retrieve that kind of information. This post explains how to query the Yelp API from a PHP script to obtain a list of nearby places.
Other posts in this blog have already covered the procedure to add an interactive map to a web page either using the Google Maps API or else the HERE Maps API.
Leaflet is an open source alternative equally valid to put a map on a page. The Leaflet API allows adding our own information layers to the map, customize the design, and adapt the map to our requirements in other ways.
This post provides an introduction to the main characteristics and functionality of Leaflet.
HERE Maps is the new trademark of the Nokia/Navteq mapping platform, after its acquisition by Microsoft. This platform is an alternative to Google Maps worth to be taken into account, offering a similar functionality and (alleguedly) better performance.
This post explains how to use the HERE Maps API to insert a map in a web page.
The shapefile (SHP) format is one of the most commonly used data formats in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Most geographical information editing tools, including free open source tools such as QGIS, can read and generate files in shapefile format.
But sometimes it may be necessary, or simply desirable, to use other formats for the handling of geographical information. One of the most popular formats used in the development of web applications is GeoJSON, that can be directly processed in javascript.
This post explains by means of an example how to convert a file from SHP to GeoJSON format.
This post is a compilation of some useful free online resources to obtain geographical information for Mexico, including administrative areas, postal codes, points of interest, etc.
The Overpass API has been developed to perform read-only queries to the Openstreetmap database, using a powerful and flexible language known as Overpass QL. This post illustrates the syntax of this language with sample queries.
The “osmosis” tool can be used to import an XML OpenStreetMap dump file into a MySQL database, but the structure of the database needs to be created beforehand.
GeoPlanet is a free (although with daily usage limits) geographical information database offered by Yahoo!. This post explores the information available in this database, and how to query it. Continue reading »
Google maps gives users validated with a Google account the possibility to add annotations to a map, to mark places, as well as to highlight paths and closed areas.
The Google maps API also allows to add annotations to the map using javascript. This post reviews how to create these custom maps, both in the Google Maps frontend and by using the API.