ip-location-api

Fast and customizable nodejs api to get geolocation information from ip address. ip-location-api make a fast lookup by using in-memory database.

This api is created for server-side javascript like Node.js. If you need client-side javascript which works in BROWSER, please try to use @iplookup/country or @iplookup/geocode.

Synopsis

import { lookup } from 'ip-location-api'
// or CJS format
// const { lookup } = require('ip-location-api')

var ip = "207.97.227.239"
var location = lookup(ip)
// If you use Asynchronouns version which is configured with smallMemory=true,
// var location = await lookup(ip)

console.log(location)
{
  country: 'FR',
  region1: 'NOR',
  region1_name: 'Normandy',
  region2: '27', 
  region2_name: 'Eure',
  city: 'Heudicourt',
  // metro: Defined only in US (Aug.2024)
  timezone: 'Europe/Paris',
  eu: 1,
  latitude: 49.3335,
  longitude: 1.6566,
  area: 5,
  postcode: 27860,
  country_name: 'France',
  country_native: 'France',
  phone: [ 33 ],
  continent: 'EU',
  capital: 'Paris',
  currency: [ 'EUR' ],
  languages: [ 'fr' ],
  continent_name: 'Europe'
}

Benchmark

I make a benchmark for making comparison with intel 12700 (2.1GHz), SSD, nodejs v20. You can change the memory usage or lookup time, by customizing location information.

benchmark	type	in-memory db	startup	lookup ipv4	lookup ipv6
ip-location-api (default)	country	6.9 MB	3 ms	0.362 μs/ip	0.708 μs/ip
ip-location-api (async)	country	2.9 MB	2 ms	243 μs/ip	255 μs/ip
ip-location-api	city	62.9 MB	14 ms	0.751 μs/ip	1.064 μs/ip
ip-location-api (async)	city	15.6 MB	5 ms	267 μs/ip	271 μs/ip
geoip-lite	city	136 MB	54 ms	1.616 μs/ip	3.890 μs/ip
fast-geoip (async)	city	0MB	4 ms	1714 μs/ip	cannot lookup

Installation

$ npm i ip-location-api

API

ip-location-api has two modes which are synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronouns one load all data in-memory at startup time, thus it makes fast lookup. Asynchronouns one load smaller data in-memory at startup time, and the other data is loaded from the hard drive for each lookup.

type	memory usage	startup	lookup
Synchronouns	Large	Slow	Fast
Asynchronouns	Small	Fast	Slow

If you have a enough memory, I recommend to use synchronouns one because lookup is over 300 times faster than asynchronouns one.

Field description

Note that as far as possible, the same field names as in geoip-lite are used, but some different field names are used.

ip-location-api	geoip-lite	database	description
country	country	MaxMind	"2 letter" country code defined at ISO-3166-1 alpha-2
region1	region	MaxMind	region code which is short code for region1_name ISO 3166-2
region1_name	❌️	MaxMind	first sub division name (multi language)
region2	❌️	MaxMind	region code which is short code for region2_name ISO 3166-2
region2_name	❌️	MaxMind	second sub division name (multi language)
city	city	MaxMind	city name (multi language)
metro	metro	MaxMind	Geolocation target code from Google
eu	eu	MaxMind	true: the member state of the European Union, undefined: for the other countries. This needs "country" field.
timezone	timezone	MaxMind	time zone associated with location
latitude	ll[0]	MaxMind	approximate WGS84 latitude
longitude	ll[1]	MaxMind	approximate WGS84 longitude
area	area	MaxMind	The radius in kilometers around the specified location where the IP address is likely to be. maxmind blog
postcode	❌️	MaxMind	region-specific postal code near the IP address
❌️	range	MaxMind	We removes range information for optimization
country_name	❌️	Countries	country name
country_native	❌️	Countries	country name in native language
continent	❌️	Countries	continent short code
continent_name	❌️	Countries	continent name
capital	❌️	Countries	capital name
phone	❌️	Countries	international country calling codes
currency	❌️	Countries	list of commonly used currencies
languages	❌️	Countries	list of commonly used languages

Setup the configuration

You can configure the api by 3 way.

• CLI parameters: ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude
• Environment variables: ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude
• Javascript: await reload({fields: 'latitude,longitude'}) .

The name of CLI prameter and environment variables are same.

Conf key in reload(conf) is named with "LOWER CAMEL", CLI or ENV parameter is named with "SNAKE" with adding "ILA_" (come from Ip-Location-Api).

reload(conf)	CLI or ENV	default	description
fields	ILA_FIELDS	country	You can change the fields to be retrived from MaxMind. When you set "all", all fields are displayed.
addCountryInfo	ILA_ADD_COUNTRY_INFO	false	"true" make to add the country information from Countries. This needs "country" field.
dataDir	ILA_DATA_DIR	../data	Directory for database file
tmpDataDir	ILA_TMP_DATA_DIR	../tmp	Directory for temporary file
apiDir	ILA_API_DIR	..	Directory for ip-location-api
smallMemory	ILA_SMALL_MEMORY	false	false: synchronouns, ture: asynchronouns
smallMemoryFileSize	ILA_SMALL_MEMORY_FILE_SIZE	4096	Max file size for asynchronouns data (no change is recommended)
licenseKey	ILA_LICENSE_KEY	redist	By setting MaxMind License key, you can download latest version of database from MaxMind server. By setting to "redist", you can download the database from node-geolite2-redist repository which re-distribute the GeoLite2 database.
ipLocationDb	ILA_IP_LOCATION_DB		When you need only "country" field, you can use ip-location-db data
downloadType	ILA_DOWNLOAD_TYPE	reuse	By setting to "false", "tmpDataDir" directory is deleted every update. "reuse" dose not delete "tmpDataDir" and re-use "tmpDataDir"'s database if the database file dose not update.
autoUpdate	ILA_AUTO_UPDATE	default	By setting to "false", it dose not update automatically. "default" updates twice weekly. You can set CRON PATTERN FORMAT which is provided by cron with UTC timezone (For example, ILA_AUTO_UPDATE="0 1 * * *" for daily update).
multiDbDir	ILA_MULTI_DB_DIR	false	If you use multiple "dataDir", please make this value to "true"
series	ILA_SERIES	GeoLite2	By setting to "GeoIP2", you can use premium database "GeoIP2"
language	ILA_LANGUAGE	en	You can choose "de", "en", "es", "fr", "ja", "pt-BR", "ru", "zh-CN". By changing, the language of "region1_name", "region2_name", "city" fields are changed
silent	ILA_SILENT	false	true: deactivate unnecessary console.log

Update database

npm run updatedb

or

import { updateDb } from 'ip-location-api'
await updateDb(setting)

There are three database update way.

• ILA_LICENSE_KEY=redist
• ILA_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_GEOLITE2_LICENSE_KEY
• ILA_IP_LOCATION_DB=YOUR_CHOOSEN_DATABSE

When you set "ILA_LICENSE_KEY=redist" which is the dafault setting, it downloads GeoLite2 database from the redistribution repository node-geolite2-redist.

When you set "ILA_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_GEOLITE2_LICENSE_KEY", it downloads GeoLite2 dastabase from the MaxMind provided server. YOUR_GEOLITE2_LICENSE_KEY should be replaced by a valid GeoLite2 license key. Please follow instructions provided by MaxMind to obtain a license key.

When you set "ILA_IP_LOCATION_DB=YOUR_CHOOSEN_DATABSE", it downloads from the ip-location-db (country type only). You can "YOUR_CHOOSEN_DATABSE" from ip-location-db with country type. For example, "geolite2-geo-whois-asn" is wider IP range country database which is equivalent to GeoLite2 database result for GeoLite2 country covered IP range and geo-whois-asn-country for the other IP range. The other example, "geo-whois-asn" is CC0 licensed database, if you are unable to apply the GeoLite2 License.

After v2.0, the database is created automatically at initial startup, and updated automatically by setting ILA_AUTO_UPDATE which updates twice weekly with default setting.

How to use with an example

When you need only geographic coordinates, please set "ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude". You need to create a database for each configuration. After v2.0.0, the database is created at initial running (which takes some seconds), and auto update with ILA_AUTO_UPDATE which update twice weekly with default setting.

The database is created by following CLI

$ npm run updatedb ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude

or

$ ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude # set environment variable
$ npm run updatedb

or you can create database with 'create.js' which includes the following.

await updateDb({fields:['latitude', 'longitude']})

The CLI command for using app.js which uses ip-location-api is necessary to start with following CLI parameter

$ node app.js ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude

or environment variable

$ ILA_FIELDS=latitude,longitude # set environment variable
$ node app.js

or you can write down configuration in reload function of app.js as

await reload({fields:['latitude', 'longitude']})
// or await reload({fields:'latitude,longitude'})

If you need all the data in above field table, setting "ILA_FIELDS=all" and "ILA_ADD_COUNTRY_INFO=true" is the one.

benchmark	in-memory db	startup	lookup ipv4	lookup ipv6
longitude,latitude	46.5 MB	10 ms	0.428 μs/ip	0.776 μs/ip
all	76.4 MB	18 ms	1.054 μs/ip	1.348 μs/ip

For module bundler (webpack, vite, next.js, etc)

Some module bundlers cannot work with original database system. If module bundlers could not work with ip-location-api, please try to import module as following. It works almost same as original module.

import { lookup } from 'ip-location-api/pack'

It would be better to set directories for database files which have write permission. Without write permission directories, you cannot use this module.

ILA_DATA_DIR=/your_database_directory
ILA_TMP_DATA_DIR=/your_tmporary_directory_for_database

Node.js version

This library supports Node.js >= 14 for ESM and CJS.

License and EULA

There are multiple licenses in this library, one for the software library, and the others for the datadata. Please read the LICENSE and EULA files for details.

The license for the software itself is published under MIT License by sapics.

The GeoLite2 database comes with certain restrictions and obligations, most notably:

• You cannot prevent the library from updating the databases.
• You cannot use the GeoLite2 data:
  • for FCRA purposes,
  • to identify specific households or individuals.

You can read the latest version of GeoLite2 EULA. GeoLite2 database is provided under CC BY-SA 4.0 by MaxMind, so, you need to create attribusion to MaxMind for using GeoLite2 database.

The database of Countries is published under MIT license by Annexare Studio.