How Does Alteryx Retrieve Latitude and Longitude

[ThizViz]

My co-worker and I were discussing the Alteryx spatial tools add-on and had a little debate.

He thinks, regardless of the upgrade, Alteryx is calling an API to retrieve latitude and longitude from an address.

I think that information is housed within designer itself and no external data is being retrieved.

Who's right? Or is it neither or a combination?

[EricM · Accepted solution]

Hi @ThizViz, 

Forward geocoding (street address to lat/lon) for the US is done using local data, while the Reverse Geocoder uses an API.  

Here is a breakdown of the data used by each geocoding tool: 

Street Geocoder: Local data (US street network). 

US Geocoder: Local data (~100 million point addresses + US street network + ZIP+4 postal fallback). 

Reverse Geocoder: API, which includes point address + street network interpolation.  

International geocoding for Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil is all done using an API.  

Hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions!

Best, 

Eric

[ThizViz]

Thanks for the very thorough and great answer!