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Search for a location using Azure Maps Search services

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The Search service is a set of RESTful APIs designed to help developers search addresses, places, and business listings by name, category, and other geographic information. In addition to supporting traditional geocoding, services can also reverse geocode addresses and cross streets based on latitudes and longitudes. Latitude and longitude values returned by the search can be used as parameters in other Azure Maps services, such as Route and Weather.

This article demonstrates how to:

  • Request latitude and longitude coordinates for an address (geocode address location) by using Search Address.
  • Search for an address or Point of Interest (POI) using Fuzzy Search.
  • Use Reverse Address Search to translate coordinate location to street address.
  • Translate coordinate location into a human understandable cross street using Search Address Reverse Cross Street, most often needed in tracking applications that receive a GPS feed from a device or asset, and wish to know where the coordinate is located.

Prerequisites

This tutorial uses the Postman application, but you may choose a different API development environment.

Request latitude and longitude for an address (geocoding)

The example in this section uses Get Search Address to convert an address into latitude and longitude coordinates. This process is also called geocoding. In addition to returning the coordinates, the response also returns detailed address properties such as street, postal code, municipality, and country/region information.

Tip

If you have a set of addresses to geocode, you can use Post Search Address Batch to send a batch of queries in a single request.

  1. In the Postman app, select New to create the request. In the Create New window, select HTTP Request. Enter a Request name for the request.

  2. Select the GET HTTP method in the builder tab and enter the following URL. In this request, we're searching for a specific address: 400 Braod St, Seattle, WA 98109. For this request, and other requests mentioned in this article, replace {Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key} with your Azure Maps subscription key.

    https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/address/json?&subscription-key={Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key}&api-version=1.0&language=en-US&query=400 Broad St, Seattle, WA 98109

  3. Select the blue Send button. The response body contains data for a single location.

  4. Next, search an address that has more than one possible locations. In the Params section, change the query key to 400 Broad, Seattle. Select the blue Send button.

    Search for address

  5. Next, try setting the query key to 400 Broa.

  6. Select the Send button. The response includes results from multiple countries/regions. To geobias results to the relevant area for your users, always add as many location details as possible to the request.

Fuzzy Search supports standard single line and free-form searches. We recommend that you use the Azure Maps Search Fuzzy API when you don't know your user input type for a search request. The query input can be a full or partial address. It can also be a Point of Interest (POI) token, like a name of POI, POI category or name of brand. Furthermore, to improve the relevance of your search results, constrain the query results using a coordinate location and radius, or by defining a bounding box.

Tip

Most Search queries default to maxFuzzyLevel=1 to improve performance and reduce unusual results. Adjust fuzziness levels by using the maxFuzzyLevel or minFuzzyLevel parameters. For more information on maxFuzzyLevel and a complete list of all optional parameters, see Fuzzy Search URI Parameters.

The example in this section uses Fuzzy Search to search the entire world for pizza, then searches over the scope of a specific country/region. Finally, it demonstrates how to use a coordinate location and radius to scope a search over a specific area, and limit the number of returned results.

Important

To geobias results to the relevant area for your users, always add as many location details as possible. For more information, see Best Practices for Search.

  1. In the Postman app, select New to create the request. In the Create New window, select HTTP Request. Enter a Request name for the request.

  2. Select the GET HTTP method in the builder tab and enter the following URL. For this request, and other requests mentioned in this article, replace {Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key} with your Azure Maps subscription key.

    https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/fuzzy/json?&api-version=1.0&subscription-key={Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key}&language=en-US&query=pizza

    Note

    The json attribute in the URL path determines the response format. This article uses json for ease of use and readability. To find other supported response formats, see the format parameter definition in the URI Parameter reference documentation.

  3. Select Send and review the response body.

    The ambiguous query string for "pizza" returned 10 point of interest result (POI) in both the "pizza" and "restaurant" categories. Each result includes details such as street address, latitude and longitude values, view port, and entry points for the location. The results are now varied for this query, and aren't tied to any reference location.

    In the next step, you'll use the countrySet parameter to specify only the countries/regions for which your application needs coverage. For a complete list of supported countries/regions, see Search Coverage.

  4. The default behavior is to search the entire world, potentially returning unnecessary results. Next, search for pizza only in the United States. Add the countrySet key to the Params section, and set its value to US. Setting the countrySet key to US bounds the results to the United States.

    Search for pizza in the United States

    The results are now bounded by the country code and the query returns pizza restaurants in the United States.

  5. To get an even more targeted search, you can search over the scope of a lat/lon coordinate pair. The following example uses the lat/lon coordinates of the Seattle Space Needle. Since we only want to return results within a 400-meters radius, we add the radius parameter. Also, we add the limit parameter to limit the results to the five closest pizza places.

    In the Params section, add the following key/value pairs:

    Key Value
    lat 47.620525
    lon -122.349274
    radius 400
    limit 5

  6. Select Send. The response includes results for pizza restaurants near the Seattle Space Needle.

Get Search Address Reverse translates coordinates into human readable street addresses. This API is often used for applications that consume GPS feeds and want to discover addresses at specific coordinate points.

Important

To geobias results to the relevant area for your users, always add as many location details as possible. For more information, see Best Practices for Search.

Tip

If you have a set of coordinate locations to reverse geocode, you can use Post Search Address Reverse Batch to send a batch of queries in a single request.

This example demonstrates making reverse searches using a few of the optional parameters that are available. For the full list of optional parameters, see Reverse Search Parameters.

  1. In the Postman app, select New to create the request. In the Create New window, select HTTP Request. Enter a Request name for the request.

  2. Select the GET HTTP method in the builder tab and enter the following URL. For this request, and other requests mentioned in this article, replace {Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key} with your Azure Maps subscription key. The request should look like the following URL:

    https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/address/reverse/json?api-version=1.0&subscription-key={Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key}&language=en-US&query=47.591180,-122.332700&number=1

  3. Select Send, and review the response body. You should see one query result. The response includes key address information about Safeco Field.

  4. Next, add the following key/value pairs to the Params section:

    Key Value Returns
    number 1 The response may include the side of the street (Left/Right) and also an offset position for the number.
    returnSpeedLimit true Returns the speed limit at the address.
    returnRoadUse true Returns road use types at the address. For all possible road use types, see Road Use Types.
    returnMatchType true Returns the type of match. For all possible values, see Reverse Address Search Results.

    Search reverse.

  5. Select Send, and review the response body.

  6. Next, we add the entityType key, and set its value to Municipality. The entityType key overrides the returnMatchType key in the previous step. returnSpeedLimit and returnRoadUse also need removed since you're requesting information about the municipality. For all possible entity types, see Entity Types.

    Search reverse entityType.

  7. Select Send. Compare the results to the results returned in step 5. Because the requested entity type is now municipality, the response doesn't include street address information. Also, the returned geometryId can be used to request boundary polygon through Azure Maps Get Search Polygon API.

Tip

For more information on these as well as other parameters, see Reverse Search Parameters.

This example demonstrates how to search for a cross street based on the coordinates of an address.

  1. In the Postman app, select New to create the request. In the Create New window, select HTTP Request. Enter a Request name for the request.

  2. Select the GET HTTP method in the builder tab and enter the following URL. For this request, and other requests mentioned in this article, replace {Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key} with your Azure Maps subscription key. The request should look like the following URL:

    https://atlas.microsoft.com/search/address/reverse/crossstreet/json?&api-version=1.0&subscription-key={Your-Azure-Maps-Subscription-key}&language=en-US&query=47.591180,-122.332700

    Search cross street.

  3. Select Send, and review the response body. Notice that the response contains a crossStreet value of South Atlantic Street.

Next steps

Azure Maps Search service

Best practices for Azure Maps Search service