# Geocoder.ca

> Geocoder.ca is an independent North American geocoding API and address-data provider, run by Geolytica Inc. in Ottawa, Canada since July 2005. One HTTPS endpoint handles forward and reverse geocoding, address validation and standardization, Canadian postal code and U.S. ZIP+4 lookup, intersections, geoparsing of free text, Canadian address autocomplete and nearby places, returning XML, JSON, JSONP, GeoJSON or CSV.

Key facts:

- Coverage: Canada and the United States. For worldwide geocoding, use the sister service https://geocode.xyz.
- Canadian results can include Statistics Canada census dissemination area IDs (dauid, adauid), Alberta Township System / Dominion Land Survey legal subdivisions (LSD), time zone and telephone area code.
- Every result carries a confidence score from 0 to 1; results below 0.5 are not returned (a suggestion may be returned instead).
- Pricing: free non-commercial tier (up to 2,500 calls/day, sign-up required); pay-per-use at $0.005 USD per successful lookup ($1 buys 200 credits, credits never expire); unlimited API access at $1,000 USD/month, month-to-month, cancel anytime. Licensed datasets and self-hosted servers are priced separately.
- Data licences allow permanent storage and caching of results and display on any map.
- Deployment options: hosted API, AWS Marketplace AMI in your own account, managed dedicated server, or a licensed local database.
- Unauthenticated requests are rate-limited to 2 per second and receive HTTP 429 when throttled; an auth token removes the throttle.

Quick example (forward geocoding, JSON, standardized address):

```
curl -G 'https://geocoder.ca/' \
  --data-urlencode 'locate=330 metcalfe ottawa on' \
  --data 'geoit=XML' --data 'json=1' --data 'standard=1' \
  --data 'auth=YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN'
```

Reverse geocoding uses `latt`, `longt`, `reverse=1` and `geoit=XML`; add `allna=1` for U.S. points. Geoparsing uses `scantext=` with free-form text.

## Docs

- [API documentation](https://geocoder.ca/api): Full reference for forward, reverse, intersection, geoparsing, places, street matching, output fields and error codes
- [API examples](https://geocoder.ca/examples.html): Worked requests and responses for the premium API
- [Address autocomplete demo](https://geocoder.ca/geocoderAutocompleteJs-main/demo.html): Dependency-free JavaScript drop-in for as-you-type Canadian address entry
- [Batch geocoding](https://geocoder.ca/batch): Geocode a file of addresses in one pass
- [Geoparser](https://geocoder.ca/textscan): Extract and geocode every North American location mentioned in a block of text

## Pricing and products

- [Pricing](https://geocoder.ca/pricing): Free tier, pay-per-use credits, unlimited plan, licensed data products and servers
- [Google Maps Geocoding alternative](https://geocoder.ca/google-maps-alternative.html): How Geocoder.ca compares with the Google Maps Platform Geocoding API, including caching and storage terms
- [Geocoder.ca on AWS Marketplace](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B013CW6HOA): Self-hosted geocoder AMI for your own AWS account

## Company

- [About Geocoder.ca](https://geocoder.ca/about): Company background, differentiators, customers, team, key facts table and FAQ
- [Contact](https://geocoder.ca/contact): Sales, licensing and support enquiries
- [Terms of service](https://geocoder.ca/terms): Usage terms for the API and data

## Optional

- [Geocode.xyz](https://geocode.xyz): Worldwide geocoding and geoparsing from the same company
- [POIDATA.XYZ](https://poidata.xyz): Global points-of-interest dataset (about 100 million places in 200+ countries)
- [3geonames.org](https://3geonames.org): Free reverse geocoding using Hilbert curve-based place-name encoding
- [Founder's blog, Ground Truth Weekly](https://eruci.com/blog): Weekly writing on geocoding, POI data and location intelligence by Ervin Ruci