Locating GPS coordinates in an automated fashion through Google Maps

Question

At http://maps.google.com, if you search for something like "Deschutes River, Oregon", you get an automatic GPS marker coordinate. Sometimes you get several different options on the side and I'm trying to figure out if you can obtain these markers automatically through the API or some other methods. I was just unable to find anything in the API that would supply this and I was thinking I may have just missed it somehow.

Thanks,Josh

Answer 1

What you are describing to is typically referred to as geocoding.

The documentation for Google's is here.

Answer 2

What you are describing has nothing to do with GPS, it's just Google using its Geocoder service to turn search terms into locations. However, location technologies like GPS may be used to narrow down the search area to the current locality, but that's a subsidiary function.