Get the city and country name with latitude and longitude (iOS) - ios

Question

I use this function:
func getDataCity(tmpLat:Double,tmpLong:Double) {
let tmpCLGeocoder = CLGeocoder.init()
let tmpDataLoc = CLLocation.init(latitude: tmpLat, longitude: tmpLong)
tmpCLGeocoder.reverseGeocodeLocation(tmpDataLoc, completionHandler: {(placemarks,error) in
guard let tmpPlacemarks = placemarks else{
return
}
let placeMark = tmpPlacemarks[0] as CLPlacemark
// Country
guard let countryLocality = placeMark.country else{
return
}
// City
guard let cityLocality = placeMark.locality else{
return
}
print(countryLocality)
print(cityLocality)
})
}
When I use coordinates, for example, from Berlin/Germany
getDataCity(tmpLat: 52.52000659999999, tmpLong: 13.404953999999975)
the function works fine, it shows me the city and country. However I use coordinates from small cities or island, for example Djerba (island in Tunisia)
getDataCity(tmpLat: 33.8075978, tmpLong: 10.845146699999987)
the function doesn't print anything. Is there an explanation from Apple? What can I do about it?
To use the function in your own project, add CLLocationManagerDelegate to ViewController and don't forget to add the Privacy - Location When In Use Usage Description in your Info.plist

Answer 1

Apple's maps do not include a city for that location. Your code does recognize the country, but doesn't recognize a city there (in which case you abort).
If you open Apple Maps, you'll note that no cities are marked on that island, and searching for Houmt Arbah, Tunisia (the closest town) doesn't return a result in Apple Maps (it strangely returns Dahmani, which is a mainland town; I don't know why). It does know about Houmt Souq, but that's quite a ways from the given location.
The short and long of it is that Apple's map database doesn't know a lot about Tunisian geography. If you spend a little time looking around in Google Maps vs Apple Maps, you'll see that there are several parts of Tunisia that Apple Maps knows very little about. For example, if you look at Douz in satellite mode and then switch to map mode, you'll see that Apple's satellite imagery includes an entire village (Al-Qalah) that isn't mapped. And the street map of Douz itself (a town of 38k people), is, to put it bluntly, pathetic.
While Apple's maps have dramatically improved over the years, and in some areas they're now better than Google's maps, in most places Google tends to have far better information. If you need the best maps in arbitrary places, Google's maps are today the gold standard.