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GPS Visualizer's Easy Batch Geocoder

Convert multiple addresses to GPS coordinates

To use this free service, simply enter addresses in the box below, one per line, and click "Start geocoding" to find their latitude and longitude. If your data is in a tabular format with a descriptive header at the top of each column, choose "tabular" for type of data (and make sure the headers make sense!). If you have a raw jumble of address data, that's okay too; choose "raw list mode," but be aware that everything should at least look like an address, and any non-address data such as names, descriptions, or other fields might confuse things.

The geocoding information returned by this form comes from Yahoo!. It doesn't cover every country in the world, but it is fast and you can geocode an almost unlimited number of addresses. (Google's geocoding service is no longer available due to a change in their Terms Of Service.)

(To see detailed information, including precision data, for a single address, try the Quick Geocoder. For general info, see the Free Geocoding Utilities page.)

How this page works

Yahoo provides a geocoding "API" -- a way for other programs to quickly and easily access their services. But they only allow a certain number of queries per day, based on your IP address. This form uses JavaScript-On-Demand (JSON) code that causes your Web browser to be the one making the request (rather than gpsvisualizer.com), which means your queries don't count against my server's Yahoo limit -- that's why you can use this page to run so many addresses through Yahoo. (And thanks are due to BatchGeocode.com for the Yahoo JSON info.)

Verifying strange results

Sometimes the geocoder returns coordinates that don't seem right. Unfortunately, there's no way to get Yahoo's precision information using this form -- but you can see Yahoo's precision estimate for individual addresses if you run them through the Quick Geocoder.

One common source of errors (aside from missing, misspelled, or poorly-aligned header rows) is non-street addresses that look like addresses, like P.O. Boxes or named buildings. For example, "200 Jackson Building, 333 2nd Street" might be interpreted as "200 Jackson Street" by Yahoo. There's really no way to get around this, other than ensuring that your "address" column contains actual street addresses.