Making sense of Google Geocoding API results

Question

I'm using Google's Geocoding API to process free-form address data and am trying to make sense of the results (subpremise, administrative_area_level_2, etc.). At this point I'm only interested in addresses in the US, and would like to format the results as a street address, city, and state code. The state code seems straightforward (administrative_area_level_1), but the others are more vague. Is city locality or sublocality or both or even more? The street address itself seems like it could be any number of combinations of the other fields.

Ideally, I'd like to just take the formatted_address, strip off the city, state, zip, and country code, and keep what is left as my "street address". Are there any guidelines or recommendations for handling all these fields, at least for the majority of cases (regular addresses, addresses with unit numbers, etc.)?

Answer 1

• Street address is street_number and route
• City is locality
• State is administrative_area_level_1
• ZIP is postal_code
• Country is country

Note that Google ignores any kind of unit number (e.g. 'Apt 13A'). You'll have to add that back in yourself.

Running a sample of your data through the geocoder and checking the results manually should confirm that you're getting what you need.

Answer 2

The documentation seems to cover what the various fields mean quite clearly.

You havent said what language you are working in, but I think this will help.

Answer 3

I am doing reverse geocoding on Nearlots.com in the search pages. Basically, the user drops a marker somewhere on the map and I print an address in a search box.

I am simply printing 'formatted_address' and giving up if it's not there. This will give you something like this: "275-291 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211, USA". This is more than sufficient - you can always strip out the USA at the end.