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# How To Geocode In R For FREE

_Written by Matt Dancho_

* * *

What’s the one thing that helps you add value to your company’s raw geospatial data? **GEOCODING.**

Geocoding is the process of converting raw physical addresses to latitude and longitude geospatial points that can be viewed on a map and used for geospatial calculations. **Heck - Geocoding has been known to increase my machine learning model performance by up to 10%!**

### Table of Contents

Today I’m going to show you how to do Geocoding in R for FREE using `tidygeocoder`. Here’s what you’re learning today:

- Tutorial Part 1: How to use `tidygeocoder` to effortlessly _geocode addresses_ (convert your company addresses to Lat/Long)
- Tutorial Part 2: And I’m going to show you how to do _Reverse Geocoding_ (go from Lat/Long to Physical Addresses)
- **Bonus: I’m going to show you how to Map lat/long data using Simple Features + Mapview!**

# R-Tips Weekly

This article is part of R-Tips Weekly, a [weekly video tutorial](https://learn.business-science.io/r-tips-newsletter) that shows you step-by-step how to do common R coding tasks. Pretty cool, right?

Here are the links to get set up. 👇

- [Get the Code](https://learn.business-science.io/r-tips-newsletter)
- [YouTube Tutorial](https://youtu.be/7nFZ5BwkAXc)

# This Tutorial is Available in Video

I have a companion video tutorial that gives you the bonus Mapview Shortcuts shown in this video (plus walks you through how to use it). And, I’m finding that a lot of my students prefer the dialogue that goes along with coding. So check out this video to see me running the code in this tutorial. 👇

[How to geocode in R for free](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nFZ5BwkAXc)

# Why Geocoding is a Must

Look, I’ve been working with customer data for a long time…

And one of the RICHEST sources of data is raw company addresses!

**Think about it.** If you know where a company is located, do you think that might be important to their purchasing behavior?

Well it was for me. In fact, I found out that just simply adding the Latitude and Longitude information to my customer churn prediction models…

### Gave my models a 10% increase in performance!

### Conclusion

You learned how to use the `tidygeocoder` library to geocode and reverse geocode. Great work! **But, there’s a lot more to becoming a data scientist.**

If you’d like to become a Business Data Scientist (and have an awesome career, improve your quality of life, enjoy your job, and all the fun that comes along), then I can help with that.

# Tutorial: How to Geocode in R for Free with `tidygeocoder`

Time for geocoding with `tidygeocoder`. Let’s have some fun!

## Step 1: Load the Libraries

Load the following libraries.

- `tidyverse` and `tidygeocoder` are the main libraries.
- **But my bonus lat/long map hack uses `sf` and `mapview`.**

## Step 2: Get My Pittsburgh Pharmacies Dataset

Next, you can [steal my Pittsburgh Pharmacies dataset](https://learn.business-science.io/r-tips-newsletter). This dataset is a great way to test your skills with Geocoding.

We’ll use the Pittsburgh Pharmacies dataset (171 geocoded pharmacies) throughout the rest of this tutorial.

## Step 3: Geocode the Address Column to get Latitude and Longitude

Next, use the `geocode()` function to convert a company’s physical address to a Latitude / Longitude.

**A quick point on the API being used.** The default is `method = "osm"`, which connects to the FREE Open Street Maps Nomenatim API. This is great, but may be too slow for your needs. [Other free and paid APIs exist. (and yes google’s maps API is an option).](https://jessecambon.github.io/tidygeocoder/reference/geo.html)

## Step 4: Reverse Geocode to go from Lat/Long to Physical Address

Sometimes you have a latitude and longitude and want a physical address. For example, if your salesperson needs to know what addresses to visit **(you wouldn’t send them a Lat/Long… or else they’d think you’re nuts!)**

Did you know that you can **reverse geocode?**

You can! Here’s how to go from Latitude / Longitude to a Physical Address. (And save your inter-office reputation)