Geolocation APIs offer endless possibilities for designing personalized apps, which are completely customized according to the location of your users. In this context, ipstack offers APIs that help you to geolocate someone with their IP address. These APIs are simple and easy to use. With geolocation APIs, not only can you display information relevant to a user’s location, but you can also assess the risks posed by a user. You can find out if a user is a bot, has malicious intent, comes from an anonymous Tor system, or more.
The ipstack’s geolocation APIs are HTTPS-based requests with a very easy-to-follow syntax. Continue reading to discover how to use the ipstack’s real-time APIs for geolocation with IP addresses.
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How Do I Get The Access Key For Geolocation With IP Address?
As a first step, you need to get an access key to start using geolocation APIs. The access key acts like a unique password that allows users to access geolocation APIs. As you can see here, ipstack’s subscription fees are very reasonable. You can even sign up for a free plan that allows an awesome 100 requests per month! Enterprise customers can get customized quotes to use geolocation APIs.
How Do I Geolocate Someone With Their IP Address?
The simplest query to geolocate someone with their IP address is shown below:
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https://api.ipstack.com/75.189.151.25 ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY |
As you can see, the query is a simple HTTPS request. You only need the IP address you want to authenticate and your access key. The response object looks as follows:
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{ ip: "75.189.151.25" type: "ipv4" continent_code: "NA" continent_name: "North America" country_code: "US" country_name: "United States" region_code: "NC" region_name: "North Carolina" city: "Garner" zip: 27529 latitude: 39.64657974243164 longitude: -79.57569885253906 location: Object {} time_zone: Object{} currency: Object{} connection: Object{} security: Object{} } |
The response object has a lot of information about the requested IP address. It has the continent, country, and region information along with their codes where relevant. Additionally, it contains city and geo-coordinates specified as latitude and longitude. This comprehensive information gives you great potential for designing a completely customized software app based on users’ geolocation information.
The location, time_zone, currency, connection and security keys are described in detail later.
What Is Location In The Response Object When Querying To Geolocate Someone With Their IP Address?
The location object details the region of the IP address you want to authenticate. For example, it has the following fields:
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location: { geoname_id: 4467657 capital: "Washington D.C." languages: { code: "en" name: "English" native: "English" } country_flag: "https://assets.ipstack.com/flags/us.svg" country_flag_emoji: "🇺🇸" country_flag_emoji_unicode: "U+1F1FA U+1F1F8" calling_code: "1" is_eu: false } |
As you can see, the location key provides comprehensive information about the IP address’s corresponding country. It has the country’s capital, language spoken, a URL of the country’s flag, the country flag’s emoji, and more.
The location information is extremely useful for customizing a user’s experience. Suppose you are designing an app, then authenticating a user’s country and region. In that case, you can display the user’s country’s flag or emoji. Additionally, you can show all the content according to the region’s language without a user switching to their local language explicitly.
How Do I Find The Time Zone Of A User Through IP Address?
The response object of ipstack’s geolocation with IP address API contains the time_zone key. It’s details are shown below:
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time_zone: { id: "America/New_York" current_time: "2022-06-10T09:17:38-04:00" gmt_offset: -14400 code: "EDT" is_daylight_saving: true } |
Again, the time_zone object has complete information about the user’s time zone and the exact current time. Using time zone and current time, you can display customized messages according to the time of the day. Also, the time zone information can help you configure your software to show special deals or events according to the user’s local region.
How Do I Know The Currency When Querying To Geolocate Someone With Their IP Address?
With ipstack’s geolocation APIs, it’s easy to know your user’s currency. The currency key of the response JSON has the following information:
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currency: { code: "USD" name: "US Dollar" plural: "US dollars" symbol: "$" symbol_native: "$" } |
The best thing is that it has all forms of strings related to currency to help you customize your software. For example, you can use not only the currency symbol, full currency name, currency code but also the plural of the currency. These are awesome features that help you design personalized applications that enhance your users’ experience.
What Is The Connection Object In The Response Object Of The Geolocation API?
The connection object of the response JSON looks as shown below:
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connection: Object{ asn: 11426 isp: "Charter Communications Inc" } |
As you can see, the connection object has the ASN and ISP information about the requested IP address.
How Do I Enable Security In My System Using ipstack Geolocation APIs?
A great feature of ipstack’s geolocation APIs is that you can detect threats and assess risks to your system. Using this feature, you can block users with malicious intentions. The security key has the following information:
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security: { is_proxy: false proxy_type: null is_crawler: false crawler_name: null crawler_type: null is_tor: false threat_level: "low" threat_types: null } |
The proxy_type key can have the values CGI, web, or VPN when is_proxy is true. The is_crawler key has a true or false value, depending on whether the given IP is associated with a crawler. When true, crawler_type can have different values such as marketing, search_engine_bot, screenshot_creator, or more.
With the is_tor key, you can check whether the requested IP address is associated with an anonymous Tor system or not. The threat_level and threat_types keys help you assess the risks a user can pose to your system. The threat_types can be tor, fake_crawler, web_scraper, attack_source_http, or more. You can see the detailed documentation for more details.
What Are The Available Endpoints To Geolocate Someone With Their IP Address?
The available endpoints for the ipstack’s geolocation APIs are:
- Standard lookup: The simplest geolocation API as described above.
- Bulk lookup: Allows you to lookup multiple IP addresses simultaneously with just one query. Just append multiple IP addresses separated by commas to the standard lookup query.
- Requester lookup: Retrieve the data behind the IP address your API request is coming from. Access this feature by appending
checkto your base query.
How Do I Sign Up For ipstack To Geolocate Someone With Their IP Address?
ipstack offers the best solution to use geolocation information to enhance your users’ experience. The geolocation APIs are simple and easy to use. Moreover, you get a reliable, accurate, and secure response in a matter of milliseconds without affecting your app’s performance.
Ready to start? Head out and sign up for your free plan and try out the ipstack geolocation APIs today.
