GeoHack

GeoHack is a modified version of map sources from Egil Kvaleberg's gis extension. It is designed to do simple HTML replacements of a template on Wikipedia and serve it to the client. It is used by Wikipedia to provide links to various mapping services, when a user clicks on a link with geographical coordinates.

Different layout designs for GeoHack are listed on w:Template:GeoTemplate/sandbox.

language
The requested language version (e.g., ), falls back to English if the template page does not exist.

pagename
The full title of the referring article. If not supplied, GeoHack will attempt to read the values from the HTTP referer.

params
Coordinates, optionally followed by other location-related parameters (underscore-separated, in a  fomat). Example:

The coordinates are in one of the formats,  ,  , or   where   is degrees,   is minutes,   is seconds, and   are the directions. Decimal numbers are accepted, especially for the last position.

TODO Document me: boxed range syntax

Restrictions:
 * Should be compatible with MediaWiki titles: a 255 byte length limit,  are invalid, and spaces and underscore are treated the same.
 * causes problems if it not percent encoded in the URL.
 * Avoid non-ASCII characters, as some browsers incorrectly handle copying and pasting.
 * Avoid the equal sign (=) since it causes issues with unnamed template parameters (e.g., )
 * The characters  are escaped in the HTML to prevent exploits.


 * default:
 * Default scale: for use in templates, is overridden by,  ,   parameters.


 * dim:
 * The size of the object in meters.


 * globe:
 * Specify a different globe, defaults to Earth. The Argument value is used for the subpage name, e.g., globe:moon will load Template:GeoTemplate/moon.


 * page:
 * (disabled) Specify a subpage for map sources.


 * region:
 * (deprecated) The ISO 3166 code with an optional subdivision to highlight region specific services, see Section codes below. If not supplied, GeoHack will attempt to find the region using the coordinates.


 * scale:
 * Set the relative map scale as 1:N. The OGC's "standard rendering pixel size" of 0.28 mm × 0.28 mm (90.7 dpi) is assumed and derived for all size calculations.  Since the actual value can vary significantly (e.g. iPhone 4) it is recommended to use the display independent dim:.


 * type:
 * The following are types GeoHack recognizes along with the calculated default scale.
 * TODO Provide definitions for each type.
 * {| class="wikitable"

! type: ! ratio ! m / pixel ! {scale} ! {mmscale} ! {span} ! {altitude} ! {zoom} ! {osmzoom} ! country, satellite ! state ! adm1st ! adm2nd (default) ! adm3rd, city, mountain, isle, river, waterbody ! event, forest, glacier ! airport ! camera, edu, pass, landmark, railwaystation
 * nowrap| 1 : 10,000,000
 * 3528
 * 10000000
 * 10000000
 * 10.0
 * 1430
 * 1
 * 5
 * 1 : 3,000,000
 * 1058
 * 3000000
 * 4000000
 * 3.0
 * 429
 * 3
 * 7
 * 1 : 1,000,000
 * 353
 * 1000000
 * 1000000
 * 1.0
 * 143
 * 4
 * 9
 * 1 : 300,000
 * 106
 * 300000
 * 200000
 * 0.3
 * 42
 * 5
 * 11
 * 1 : 100,000
 * 35.3
 * 100000
 * 100000
 * 0.1
 * 14
 * 6
 * 12
 * 1 : 50,000
 * 17.6
 * 50000
 * 50000
 * 0.05
 * 7
 * 7
 * 13
 * 1 : 30,000
 * 10.6
 * 30000
 * 25000
 * 0.03
 * 4
 * 7
 * 14
 * 1 : 10,000
 * 3.53
 * 10000
 * 10000
 * 0.01
 * 1
 * 8
 * 15
 * }


 * zoom:
 * Deprecated Provided for compatibility with the Dutch maps.asp software. The scale is calibrated differently (, roughly equivalent to  ) and conflicts with the replacement variable

project
Request for a different project. If requesting the OpenStreetMaps (project=osm) page it will retrieve it from a template on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:GeoTemplate/osm

title
Set this if the page is not an appropriate title, such as when referring to a location in the article such as a particular curve on a road.

Replacement variables

 * WGS84 Positioning
 * - Decimal degrees
 * - Absolute decimal degrees (no negative)
 * - Rounded integer degrees
 * - Rounded absolute
 * - Absolute integer degrees rounded up
 * - Absolute integer degrees


 * - Antipodes of {latdegdec}, {londegdec}
 * - The negative of {londegdec}
 * - Integer degrees (floored)
 * - Decimal minutes
 * - Integer minutes
 * - Decimal seconds
 * - Integer seconds
 * - Direction of absolute integer degrees
 * UTM Positioning
 * Ordnance Survey Grid Positioning
 * CH1903 Positioning
 * Ordnance Survey Grid Positioning
 * CH1903 Positioning
 * CH1903 Positioning
 * CH1903 Positioning


 * Scaling


 * Geographical features
 * - The parameters from the params. Globe is deprecated with the implementation of subpages for bodies.


 * Coordinate title
 * {pagename} - Underscore page name, as given by the pagename or determined by the HTTP referrer.
 * {title} - Title of the location as given by title, if not specified then falls back to {pagename} with the underscore replaced with spaces.
 * {pagename_gmaps} - work around for google maps, will be replaced by {pagenamee}


 * Misc./Not fully implemented
 * {page} - Deprecated
 * {geocountry} - same as region:
 * {geoa1} - Characters 4 to 8 of region; Uppercased
 * {lang} -likely to change
 * {params} - content from params=

Section codes
If the region is supplied or determined then GeoHack moves the section to the placeholder:

The region sections are wrapped in the divs where XX of the id is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code:

A surrounding div can style this section or the local div can provide only local links. To save bandwidth and simplify the REGIONS div will be removed if a local section is found.

Synchronizations
Due to issues affecting the squid server implementation on WMF servers, pages are cached longer than they should. This worked around requesting a different URL every hour.

JavaScript
For user modifications and development, JavaScript is loaded from the local language's  page. See English Wikipedia for an example.

Embed maps


Wikimedia Maps (maps.wikimedia.org) can be embedded in the tool with two edits that will not change any content or code on the source wiki: see example MediaWiki:GeoHack.js and GeoTemplate.

The Russian and Italian Wikipedias did so in November–December 2015, see example screenshot.

Nice URLs
A URL rewrite.script has been installed to allow shortening of URL. The example below illustrates the parts that are changed or removed. https://geohack.toolforge.org/ geohack.php?language=en&params=40.7;-74_type:city(8000000)&pagename=New_York_City https://geohack.toolforge.org/ en/40.7;-74_type:city(8000000)?pagename=New_York_City

It is also compatible with the {{fullurl:}} parser function

→

Note it is not necessary to supply  as this can often be derived from the referer, see pagename above.

match URL into $ with ^/~geohack/([a-z-]{2,12})/([^=]*)([&?]([a-z]+=.*)$|$) if matched then set URL = /~geohack/geohack.php?language=$1&params=$2&$4 endif Note, for compatibility reasons, "?" parameters must contain "=" values.
 * 1) URL Rewrite script for GeoHack

Source code

 * https://bitbucket.org/magnusmanske/geohack
 * until 2013: http://svn.toolserver.org/svnroot/geohack/ backed up to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/TSVN/browse/geohack/

Geo-data projects

 * Wikipedia-World
 * ghel

Maintainers

 * User:Dispenser (project lead)
 * User:Kolossos
 * User:Magnus Manske