Geocoding Types Explained

What is Geocoding?

Geocoding is the process of converting an address description (e.g., the name of a city, a postal code, or a street address) into geographic coordinates that CARTO can visualize.

Seven Geocoding Types

Latitude and Longitude

Generates location points using separate columns for latitude and longitude values.

Cities

Generates location points from city name columns. You can optionally specify columns for Administrative Region names or country names to improve accuracy.

Countries

Requires a single column with country names to generate location border geometries as polygons.

Administrative Regions

Generates location points from administrative region names. Optionally specify a country names column for disambiguation when region names aren’t unique.

Postal Codes

Geocodes postal code text columns into location points. You can also specify a country column for additional context.

IP Addresses

Converts IP address data into point geometries representing geographic locations.

Street Addresses

Generates point geometries from street addresses. You can specify columns for street addresses, city, state, and country information.

Implementation Options

CARTO provides these geocoding types through both the Geocoding Analysis feature in Builder and the Geocoding Functions available in the Data Services API.