Getting the location from an IP address [duplicate]

Answer 1

Ipdata.co is a fast, highly available IP Geolocation API with reliable performance.

It's extremely scalable with 10 endpoints around the world each able to handle >10,000 requests per second!

This answer uses a 'test' API Key that is very limited and only meant for testing a few calls. Signup for your own Free API Key and get up to 1500 requests daily for development.

In php

php > $ip = '8.8.8.8';
php > $details = json_decode(file_get_contents("https://api.ipdata.co/{$ip}?api-key=test"));
php > echo $details->region;
California
php > echo $details->city;
Mountain View
php > echo $details->country_name;
United States
php > echo $details->latitude;
37.751

Here's a client-side example showing how you'd get the country, region and city;

$.get("https://api.ipdata.co?api-key=test", function (response) {
	$("#response").html(JSON.stringify(response, null, 4));
  $("#country").html('Country: ' + response.country_name);
  $("#region").html('Region ' + response.region);
  $("#city").html('City' + response.city);  
}, "jsonp");

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="country"></div>
<div id="region"></div>
<div id="city"></div>
<pre id="response"></pre>

Disclaimer;

I built the service.

For examples in multiple languages see the Docs

Also see this detailed analysis of the best IP Geolocation APIs.

Answer 2

PHP has an extension for that.

From PHP.net:

The GeoIP extension allows you to find the location of an IP address. City, State, Country, Longitude, Latitude, and other information as all, such as ISP and connection type can be obtained with the help of GeoIP.

For example:

$record = geoip_record_by_name($ip);
echo $record['city'];

Answer 3

In case anyone stumbles upon this thread, here's another solution. At timezoneapi.io you can request an IP address and get several objects in return (I've created the service). It was created because I needed to know which timezone my users were in, where in the world and what time it currently is.

In PHP - returns location, timezone and date/time:

// Get IP address
$ip_address = getenv('HTTP_CLIENT_IP') ?: getenv('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR') ?: getenv('HTTP_X_FORWARDED') ?: getenv('HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR') ?: getenv('HTTP_FORWARDED') ?: getenv('REMOTE_ADDR');

// Get JSON object
$jsondata = file_get_contents("http://timezoneapi.io/api/ip/?" . $ip_address);

// Decode
$data = json_decode($jsondata, true);

// Request OK?
if($data['meta']['code'] == '200'){

    // Example: Get the city parameter
    echo "City: " . $data['data']['city'] . "<br>";

    // Example: Get the users time
    echo "Time: " . $data['data']['datetime']['date_time_txt'] . "<br>";

}

Using jQuery:

// Get JSON object
$.getJSON('https://timezoneapi.io/api/ip', function(data){

    // Request OK?
    if(data.meta.code == '200'){

        // Log
        console.log(data);

        // Example: Get the city parameter
        var city = data.data.city;
        alert(city);

        // Example: Get the users time
        var time = data.data.datetime.date_time_txt;
        alert(time);

    }

});

Answer 4

If you're searching for an updated/accurate database I recommend to use this one here because it was showing my exact location which was not included in many other services when I was testing.
(My city was Rasht and my country was Iran with this ip address: 2.187.21.235 when I was testing.)

I recommend to use database rather than API methods, because it will be processed much faster locally.

Answer 5

This question is protected, which I understand. However, I do not see an answer here, what I see is a lot of people showing what they came up with from having the same question.

There are currently five Regional Internet Registries with varying degrees of functionality that serve as the first point of contact with regard to IP ownership. The process is in flux, which is why the various services here work sometimes and don't at other times.

Who Is is (obviously) an ancient TCP protocol, however -- the way it worked originally was by connection to port 43, which makes it problematic getting it routed through leased connections, through firewalls...etc.

At this moment -- most Who Is is done via RESTful HTTP and ARIN, RIPE and APNIC have RESTful services that work. LACNIC's returns a 503 and AfriNIC apparently has no such API. (All have online services, however.)

That will get you -- the address of the IP's registered owner, but -- not your client's location -- you must get that from them and also -- you have to ask for it. Also, proxies are the least of your worries when validating the IP that you think is the originator.

People do not appreciate the notion that they are being tracked, so -- my thoughts are -- get it from your client directly and with their permission and expect a lot to balk at the notion.

Answer 6

I've done a bunch of testing with IP address services and here are a few ways I do it myself. First off a bunch off links to useful websites that I use:

https://db-ip.com/db Has a free ip-lookup service and has a few free csv files you can download. This uses a free api key that is attached to your email. It limits at 2000 queries per day.

http://ipinfo.io/ Free ip-lookup service without a api-key PHP functions:

//uses http://ipinfo.io/.
function ip_visitor_country($ip){
    $ip_data_in = get_web_page("http://ipinfo.io/".$ip."/json"); //add the ip to the url and retrieve the json data
    $ip_data = json_decode($ip_data_in['content'],true); //json_decode it for php use

    //this ip-lookup service returns 404 if the ip is invalid/not found so return false if this is the case.
    if(empty($ip_data) || $ip_data_in['httpcode'] == 404){
        return false;
    }else{
        return $ip_data; 
    }
}

function get_web_page($url){
    $user_agent = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0';

    $options = array(
        CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST  =>"GET",        //set request type post or get
        CURLOPT_POST           =>false,        //set to GET
        CURLOPT_USERAGENT      => $user_agent, //set user agent
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,     // return web page
        CURLOPT_HEADER         => false,    // don't return headers
        CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,     // follow redirects
        CURLOPT_ENCODING       => "",       // handle all encodings
        CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER    => true,     // set referer on redirect
        CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120,      // timeout on connect
        CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 120,      // timeout on response
        CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS      => 10,       // stop after 10 redirects
    );
    $ch = curl_init( $url );
    curl_setopt_array( $ch, $options );
    $content = curl_exec( $ch );
    $err     = curl_errno( $ch );
    $errmsg  = curl_error( $ch );
    $header  = curl_getinfo( $ch );
    $httpCode = curl_getinfo( $ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE );
    curl_close( $ch );  
    $header['errno']   = $err; //curl error code
    $header['errmsg']  = $errmsg; //curl error message
    $header['content'] = $content; //the webpage result (In this case the ip data in json array form)
    $header['httpcode'] = $httpCode; //the webpage response code
    return $header; //return the collected data and response codes
}

In the end you get something like this:

Array
(
    [ip] => 1.1.1.1
    [hostname] => No Hostname
    [city] => 
    [country] => AU
    [loc] => -27.0000,133.0000
    [org] => AS15169 Google Inc.
)

---

http://www.geoplugin.com/ Slightly older but this service gives you a bunch of extra usefull information such as the currency off the country, continent code, longitude and more.

---

http://lite.ip2location.com/database-ip-country-region-city-latitude-longitude Offers a bunch of downloadable files with instructions to import them into your database. Once you have one off these files in your database you can select the data fairly easily.

SELECT * FROM `ip2location_db5` WHERE IP > ip_from AND IP < ip_to

Use the php function ip2long(); to turn the ip-address into a numeric value. For example 1.1.1.1 becomes 16843009. This lets you scan for the ip ranges given to you by the database file.

So in order to find out where 1.1.1.1 belongs to all we do is run this query:

SELECT * FROM `ip2location_db5` WHERE 16843009 > ip_from AND 16843009 < ip_to;

This returns this data as a example.

FROM: 16843008
TO: 16843263
Country code: AU
Country: Australia
Region: Queensland
City: Brisbane
Latitude: -27.46794
Longitude: 153.02809