geocoding service

A geocoding service is a service that can search for addresses, place addresses, and businesses. It takes input text, such as an address, place, or business name, and returns a set of address candidates. Each candidate contains data such as the real address, location, match score, and other attributes. The service can also take an input location and return the nearest address, street intersection, point of interest (POI), or geographic place; this is known as reverse-geocoding. A geocoding service can also perform bulk geocoding, where many addresses are geocoded at once. An access token is required to use the service.

There are two types of geocoding services:

  1. The ArcGIS Geocoding service: A location service hosted by Esri for developers who have an ArcGIS Location Platform account or ArcGIS Online account.

  2. ArcGIS Enterprise geocoding service: A geocoding service you can host in your own infrastructure with ArcGIS Enterprise. The service is available to developers who have an ArcGIS Enterprise account associated with the organization.

Learn more in the developer guide

Also known as

  • world geocoding service

Related terms

  • geocode
  • location services

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