Google Map & search by location feature

Question

I'm building a site where my users will be able to specify locations (say, their residence, etc.). Then, I want to do 2 things to this information:

1. Plot these location on a mapping service (such as Google Map)
2. Allow users to search by location (e.g. find all users that live in or are in a certain radius from XYZ city)

The question I have is this: what is the best way for me to implement such features?

My concern is that my database of location information may or may not be in sync with the mapping service I use.

For example, say I have a list of cities and a user picks XYZ city from my list. Later, it turns out that city is not recognized by the mapping service. No way to plot the location on the map (but I could still provide the search by location feature).

If I try to use the database of the mapping service (if I can get a hold of something like that), I may end up being "locked in" to using that mapping service. Plus, these databases tend to be HUGE (and probably too much information for a simple application like mine).

Any recommendations on how to go about solving this problem? Thanks.

Answer 1

You should not rely only on the Cities but take the coordinates into account (watch out for different mappings of the world - this will change the coordinates). If you use the coordinates, you are independet from the service because x,y will always be x,y no matter the application or geo-provider. WIth the help of reverser geo-location services, you should be able to have something like that pretty easy.

This is very biased opinion: if(!!) you stick to, say Google, you can be quite sure that they won't quit the service in the next 1-2 years (maybe if there is a new uber-technology) but I doubt that very much. So I think it is ok to stick to a single service if you trust it and are sure that it will live for more than a few years.