{"id":29544,"date":"2023-07-26T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/?p=29544"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:26:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T23:26:30","slug":"geo-tag-your-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/geo-tag-your-images","title":{"rendered":"Geo Tag Images | Everything You Need to Know and How Cloudinary Helps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geo Tagging, a versatile process applicable to images and videos, websites, text messages, and QR codes, involves adding geographic coordinates to media. This process usually centers on assigning latitude and longitude but can also encompass additional fields such as elevation, compass bearing, time stamps, and other contextual information.<\/p>\n

Why Add Geo Tag to an Image?<\/h2>\n

If you have geo tagged images, you can extract the latitude and longitude to determine the city and country. This data can be set as structured metadata in Cloudinary, allowing you to easily search and categorize within your library.<\/p>\n

Understanding the presence of geo-tags in your media is straightforward: for images, simply right-click, select Properties<\/strong> or Information<\/strong>, and check the GPS section in the Details<\/strong> tab. Tools like Geoimgr or SunCalc can also assist in identifying geotags in photos. Besides aiding in tracking trips or enhancing the local search ranking of a website, geotagging also entails privacy considerations; smartphones, by default, geo tag photos taken, a feature that can be disabled for privacy.<\/p>\n

For example, you can set up<\/a> your iPhone or Android device to add GPS location data, but your images will be saved with EXIF metadata, which includes geo tag EXIF<\/a> data. As the GPS data is embedded within the binary data of the image, it can\u2019t be used for searching and categorizing. In this blog post, I\u2019ll show you how to extract, translate, and expose the location details so that you can search for and categorize your image assets.\n\u200b\nTo achieve this, we\u2019ll:\n\u200b<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Create the metadata definition.<\/li>\n
  2. Create an upload preset on Cloudinary to extract the EXIF information.<\/li>\n
  3. Set the latitude, longitude, and altitude information as structured metadata<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Translate the latitude and longitude to a city, state, and country.<\/li>\n
  5. Finally, set the city, state, and country as additional structured metadata.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Not using Cloudinary right now? You can sign up for Cloudinary for free and for life<\/a>. You\u2019ll get the ability to add geo-tags to images and all of Cloudinary, too, so you can do everything discussed in this article for free.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s get started!\n\u200b<\/p>\n

    Geo Tag Photo With Location Information<\/h2>\n

    \u200b\nThe simplest way to get a geo tagged image is from your cell phone. If you\u2019ve enabled geo-tagging, images should already have the location data. I\u2019ll use the following image:\n\u200b\n\"Image<\/p>\n

    To verify, I\u2019ll use the exiftool<\/a> installed on my laptop. Alternatively, you could use the web version<\/a> of the tool.\n\u200b<\/p>\n

    $ exiftool location_test.jpg | grep -i gps | sort\n\u200b\nGPS Altitude                    : 21.8 m Below Sea Level\nGPS Altitude Ref                : Below Sea Level\nGPS Date Stamp                  : 2023:06:04\nGPS Date\/Time                   : 2023:06:04 03:15:14Z\nGPS Latitude                    : 37 deg 33' 49.66" N\nGPS Latitude Ref                : North\nGPS Longitude                   : 122 deg 2' 5.04" W\nGPS Longitude Ref               : West\nGPS Position                    : 37 deg 33' 49.66" N, 122 deg 2' 5.04" W\nGPS Time Stamp                  : 03:15:14\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    \u200b\nAs you can see, the image has been geo-tagged. For our purpose, we only need the latitude and longitude.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    Add Geo Tag to Image Step 1: Create Metadata Definitions<\/h2>\n
    \u200b\nI want to automate the process of extracting the latitude and longitude from the geotag EXIF data, and insert them as structured metadata fields. For this, I created metadata definitions for six fields: latitude, longitude, altitude, city, state, and country. This can be done using the create metadata field<\/a> Admin API.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    cld admin add_metadata_field  '{"external_id": "city", "label": "City", "type": "string"}'\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    \u200b<\/p>\n
    {\n  \"type\"<\/span>: \"string\"<\/span>,\n  \"external_id\"<\/span>: \"city\"<\/span>,\n  \"label\"<\/span>: \"City\"<\/span>,\n  \"mandatory\"<\/span>: false<\/span>,\n  \"default_value\"<\/span>: null<\/span>,\n  \"validation\"<\/span>: null<\/span>,\n  \"default_disabled\"<\/span>: false<\/span>,\n  \"restrictions\"<\/span>: {\n    \"readonly_ui\"<\/span>: false<\/span>\n  }\n}\n<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JSON \/ JSON with Comments<\/span> (<\/span>json<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n
    \u200b\nYou should have metadata definitions like this:\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    \"metadata\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    Add Geo Tag to Image Step 2: Create an Upload Preset<\/h2>\n
    \u200b\nNext, we\u2019ll need to extract the location information from geotag EXIF and insert it into the metadata fields latitude<\/code>, longitude<\/code>, and altitude<\/code>. To do so, I used the eval<\/code><\/a> within an upload preset<\/a>.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    cld -C react admin create_upload_preset \\\nname=gps1 eval="upload_options.metadata = \\\n'altitude=' + (resource_info.image_metadata.GPSAltitude || 0) + \\\n'|latitude=' + (resource_info.image_metadata.GPSLatitude || 0) + \\\n'|longitude=' + (resource_info.image_metadata.GPSLongitude || 0)"```\n\u200b\n```json\n{\n  "message": "created",\n  "name": "gps"\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    \u200b<\/p>\n
    Add Geo Tag to Image Step 3: Upload the Image and Set Metadata<\/h2>\n
    \u200b\nOnce we have the metadata definitions and the upload preset, the next step is to upload the test image<\/a>. While uploading, we\u2019ll need to specify our preset gps<\/code> to ensure Cloudinary\u2019s backend will extract the EXIF and apply it as metadata.\n\u200b\nIn my case, the test image is on my local system with the name location.jpg<\/code>. Using the CLI, here\u2019s how I uploaded the image.\n\u200b\n\"Image\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    cld -C train uploader upload location_test.jpg upload_preset=gps exif=true\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    \u200b\nIn this case, I\u2019ll set the option exif=true<\/code> to force the backend to include the entire set of EXIF information in the upload response, which can help validate if our presets are working. Here\u2019s the simplified response.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    {\n  \"asset_id\"<\/span>: \"9604d41650ba87d03fe08fbaa6281635\"<\/span>,\n  \"public_id\"<\/span>: \"bx6e3lx6mehu2kmzsiti\"<\/span>,\n  \"version\"<\/span>: 1686636650<\/span>,\n  \n  \"metadata\"<\/span>: {\n    \"altitude\"<\/span>: \"14.61 m\"<\/span>,\n    \"latitude\"<\/span>: \"37 deg 35' 29.53\\\" N\"<\/span>,\n    \"longitude\"<\/span>: \"121 deg 55' 58.85\\\" W\"<\/span>    \n  },\n  \"exif\"<\/span>: {\n    ..\n    \"GPSAltitude\"<\/span>: \"1461\/100\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSAltitudeRef\"<\/span>: \"0\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSDateStamp\"<\/span>: \"2023:05:28\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSImgDirection\"<\/span>: \"144\/1\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSImgDirectionRef\"<\/span>: \"M\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSInfo\"<\/span>: \"963\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSLatitude\"<\/span>: \"37\/1, 35\/1, 2953\/100\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSLatitudeRef\"<\/span>: \"N\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSLongitude\"<\/span>: \"121\/1, 55\/1, 5885\/100\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSLongitudeRef\"<\/span>: \"W\"<\/span>,\n    \"GPSTimeStamp\"<\/span>: \"2\/1, 20\/1, 41\/1\"<\/span>    \n  },\n  \"original_filename\"<\/span>: \"location\"<\/span>,\n  \"api_key\"<\/span>: \"NNNNN\"<\/span>\n}\n<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JavaScript<\/span> (<\/span>javascript<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n
    \u200b\nAs you can see, we get the raw latitude and longitude data. However, we\u2019ll need to translate this information to make it easier to read. So let\u2019s do that next.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    Add Geo Tag to Image Step 4: Translate Latitude and Longitude to City, State, and Country<\/h2>\n
    \u200b\nAPIs like Google Maps API<\/a> can easily translate the latitude and longitude information to city, state, and country. In this case, I wanted to keep the lookup local for performance and simplicity, so I\u2019ll use the reverse-geocoder<\/a> library for Python. Using this library and FastAPI<\/a>, I created a self-documented API service that could run the translation. Please check the code at get-geo-details<\/a>.\n\u200b\nFor example, here\u2019s a translation request\/response.\n\u200b<\/p>\n
    curl -s http:\/\/127.0.0.1:8000\/coords\\?coords\\=73%20deg%2056%27%206.87%22%20W:40%20deg%2043%27%2050.19%22%20N | jq\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
    \u200b<\/p>\n
    {\n  \"lat\"<\/span>: \"40.74482\"<\/span>,\n  \"lon\"<\/span>: \"-73.94875\"<\/span>,\n  \"name\"<\/span>: \"Long Island City\"<\/span>,\n  \"admin1\"<\/span>: \"New York\"<\/span>,\n  \"admin2\"<\/span>: \"Queens County\"<\/span>,\n  \"cc\"<\/span>: \"US\"<\/span>\n}\n<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> JSON \/ JSON with Comments<\/span> (<\/span>json<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n
    \u200b<\/p>\n
    Add Geo Tag to Image Step 5: Set the City, State, and Country Metadata<\/h2>\n
    \u200b\nThe last step is to use the translation service above; get the city, state, and country information; and set this information as the image\u2019s metadata fields. You can do this step in Cloudinary using Webhook notifications<\/a>. Just build an AWS Lambda function that\u2019s triggered whenever a new image is uploaded. Using the upload API response, the Lambda can extract the latitude and longitude data. It can then either translate locally or call a service and add the metadata for the asset using the update metadata<\/a> API.<\/p>\n
    However, in my case, I wanted to provide the translation as a DAM app<\/a>, so the workflow will look like the below.\n\u200b\n\"gps\n\u200b\nWhen a user selects an image and fires the DAM app, it will:<\/p>\n