What Web Can Do Today?

The Geolocation API lets authorized Web applications to access the location data provided by the device - obtained using either GPS or from the network environment. Apart from the one-off location query, it gives a way for the app to be notified about the location changes.

See Permissions for a way to check whether the user has granted or denied the permission to obtain the location by the origin.

API glimpse

Live Demo

• JavaScript

  var target = document.getElementById('target');
  var watchId;
  
  function appendLocation(location, verb) {
    verb = verb || 'updated';
    var newLocation = document.createElement('p');
    newLocation.innerHTML = 'Location ' + verb + ': <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?&z=15&q=' + location.coords.latitude + '+' + location.coords.longitude + '&ll=' + location.coords.latitude + '+' + location.coords.longitude + '" target="_blank" rel="noopener">' + location.coords.latitude + ', ' + location.coords.longitude + '</a>';
    target.appendChild(newLocation);
  }
  
  if ('geolocation' in navigator) {
    document.getElementById('askButton').addEventListener('click', function () {
      navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function (location) {
        appendLocation(location, 'fetched');
      });
      watchId = navigator.geolocation.watchPosition(appendLocation);
    });
  } else {
    target.innerText = 'Geolocation API not supported.';
  }

• HTML

  <button id="askButton">Ask for location</button>
  
  <div id="target"></div>

Browser support

Resources

• Specification
• MDN: Using geolocation