Wikimedia Commons API search images by (latitude, longitude) - geolocation

Question

I would like to retrieve images from Wikimedia Commons to display on a map. This means that given a pair (latitude, longitude) I would like to find pictures around this point.
After a day of searching and trying I have still no idea whether this is possible or not. In particular I have read MediaWiki API Main page, the API reference and some examples.
So my question is: is it possible to retrieve pictures with a pair of geographical coordinates? If yes, how?

Answer 1

Yeah, that's possible. On Commons, Extension:GeoData is installed. Use action=query&list=geosearch&gscoord=lat|lon&gsradius=meters&gsnamespace=6&gsprimary=all
Excerpt from the API documentation
gscoord - Coordinate around which to search: two floating-point values separated by pipe (|)
gspage - Title of page around which to search
gsradius - Search radius in meters
This parameter is required
The value must be between 10 and 10000
gsmaxdim - Restrict search to objects no larger than this, in meters
gslimit - Maximum number of pages to return
No more than 500 (5000 for bots) allowed
Default: 10
gsnamespace - Namespace(s) to search
Values (separate with '|'): 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 460,
461, 490, 491, 1198, 1199, 828, 829
Maximum number of values 50 (500 for bots)
Default: 0
gsprop - What additional coordinate properties to return
Values (separate with '|'): type, name, dim, country, region, globe
Default: globe
File namespace is NS 6 in MediaWiki by default.
Example:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&list=geosearch&gsprimary=all&gsnamespace=6&gsradius=500&gscoord=51.5|11.95
Result:
{
"query": {
"geosearch": [
{
"pageid": 28971703,
"ns": 6,
"title": "File:RiveuferHerbst.JPG",
"lat": 51.501042,
"lon": 11.948794,
"dist": 142.8
},
{
"pageid": 32760810,
"ns": 6,
"title": "File:Pei\u00dfnitznordspitze4.JPG",
"lat": 51.499675,
"lon": 11.947992,
"dist": 143.6
}
]
}
}
If you additionally want to optain thumbnail urls with your API request, use list=geosearch as a generator:
Example:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?format=jsonfm&action=query&generator=geosearch&ggsprimary=all&ggsnamespace=6&ggsradius=500&ggscoord=51.5|11.95&ggslimit=1&prop=imageinfo&iilimit=1&iiprop=url&iiurlwidth=200&iiurlheight=200
Result:
{
"query": {
"pages": {
"28971703": {
"pageid": 28971703,
"ns": 6,
"title": "File:RiveuferHerbst.JPG",
"imagerepository": "local",
"imageinfo": [
{
"thumburl": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/RiveuferHerbst.JPG/200px-RiveuferHerbst.JPG",
"thumbwidth": 200,
"thumbheight": 150,
"url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/RiveuferHerbst.JPG",
"descriptionurl": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RiveuferHerbst.JPG"
}
]
}
}
}
}