How to Turn Latitude and Longitude into an Address with JavaScript

Sometimes you have GPS coordinates like: 40.7128, -74.0060 But coordinates alone are not very useful to most users. They usually want to know something much simpler: What place is this? The process of converting latitude and longitude into a human-readable address is called reverse geocoding . In this article, we'll build a simple reverse geocoding example with JavaScript. What Is Reverse Geocoding? Normal geocoding converts an address into coordinates: New York, NY ↓ 40.7128, -74.0060 Reverse geocoding does the opposite: 40.7128, -74.0060 ↓ New York, NY, United States This is useful for location tools, GPS applications, travel websites, delivery systems, photo location tools, and map interfaces. Reverse Geocoding with JavaScript For a simple example, we can use the OpenStreetMap Nominatim reverse geocoding endpoint. async function reverseGeocode ( lat , lon ) { const url = `https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse` + `?lat= ${ lat } &lon= ${ lon } &format=jsonv2` ; const response = await fetch ( url ); if ( ! response . ok ) { throw new Error ( " Reverse geocoding failed " ); } const data = await response . json (); return data ; } reverseGeocode ( 40.7128 , - 74.0060 ) . then ( data => { console . log ( data . display_name ); }) . catch ( error => { console . error ( error ); }); The returned data usually contains a readable location name together with structured address information. Display the Address on a Page We can turn the example into a small browser tool. <input id= "lat" placeholder= "Latitude" > <input id= "lon" placeholder= "Longitude" > <button onclick= "findAddress()" > Find Address </button> <p id= "result" ></p> <script> async function findAddress () { const lat = document . getElementById ( " lat " ). value ; const lon = document . getElementById ( " lon " ). value ; const result = document . getElementById ( " result " ); try { const url = `https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse` + `?lat= ${ lat } &lon= ${ lon } &format=jsonv2` ; const res