How to getting the location from an IP address

Question

I want to retrieve information like the city, state, and country of a visitor from their IP address, so that I can customize my web page according to their location. Is there a good and reliable way to do this in PHP? I am using JavaScript for client-side scripting, PHP for server-side scripting, and MySQL for the database.

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

You could download a free GeoIP database and lookup the IP address locally, or you could use a third party service and perform a remote lookup. This is the simpler option, as it requires no setup, but it does introduce additional latency.

One third party service you could use is mine. They provide hostname, geolocation, network owner and additional information, eg:

$ curl ipinfo.io/8.8.8.8
{
  "ip": "8.8.8.8",
  "hostname": "google-public-dns-a.google.com",
  "loc": "37.385999999999996,-122.0838",
  "org": "AS15169 Google Inc.",
  "city": "Mountain View",
  "region": "CA",
  "country": "US",
  "phone": 650
}

Here's a PHP example:

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$details = json_decode(file_get_contents("/{$ip}/json"));
echo $details->city; // -> "Mountain View"

Hope it helps!!

Thank you!!