Getting visitors country from their IP

Question

I want to get visitors country via their IP... Right now I'm using this (http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=...... )

Here is my code:

<?php

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']))
{
    $real_ip_adress = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
}

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
{
    $real_ip_adress = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
}
else
{
    $real_ip_adress = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
}

$cip = $real_ip_adress;
$iptolocation = 'http://api.hostip.info/country.php?ip=' . $cip;
$creatorlocation = file_get_contents($iptolocation);

?>

Well, it's working properly, but the thing is, this returns the country code like US or CA., and not the whole country name like United States or Canada.

So, is there any good alternative to hostip.info offers this?

I know that I can just write some code that will eventually turn this two letters to whole country name, but I'm just too lazy to write a code that contains all countries...

P.S: For some reason I don't want to use any ready made CSV file or any code that will grab this information for me, something like ip2country ready made code and CSV.

Answer 1

Use MaxMind GeoIP (or GeoIPLite if you are not ready to pay).

$gi = geoip_open('GeoIP.dat', GEOIP_MEMORY_CACHE);
$country = geoip_country_code_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
geoip_close($gi);

Answer 2

I tried Chandra's answer but my server configuration does not allow file_get_contents()

PHP Warning: file_get_contents() URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration

I modified Chandra's code so that it also works for servers like that using cURL:

function ip_visitor_country()
{

    $client  = @$_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
    $forward = @$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
    $remote  = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
    $country  = "Unknown";

    if(filter_var($client, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP))
    {
        $ip = $client;
    }
    elseif(filter_var($forward, FILTER_VALIDATE_IP))
    {
        $ip = $forward;
    }
    else
    {
        $ip = $remote;
    }
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.geoplugin.net/json.gp?ip=".$ip);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
    $ip_data_in = curl_exec($ch); // string
    curl_close($ch);

    $ip_data = json_decode($ip_data_in,true);
    $ip_data = str_replace('"', '"', $ip_data); // for PHP 5.2 see stackoverflow.com/questions/3110487/

    if($ip_data && $ip_data['geoplugin_countryName'] != null) {
        $country = $ip_data['geoplugin_countryName'];
    }

    return 'IP: '.$ip.' # Country: '.$country;
}

echo ip_visitor_country(); // output Coutry name

?>

Hope that helps ;-)

Answer 3

I have a short answer which I have used in a project. In my answer, I consider that you have visitor IP address.

$ip = "202.142.178.220";
$ipdat = @json_decode(file_get_contents("http://www.geoplugin.net/json.gp?ip=" . $ip));
//get ISO2 country code
if(property_exists($ipdat, 'geoplugin_countryCode')) {
    echo $ipdat->geoplugin_countryCode;
}
//get country full name
if(property_exists($ipdat, 'geoplugin_countryName')) {
    echo $ipdat->geoplugin_countryName;
}

Answer 4

You can use a web-service from http://ip-api.com
in your php code, do as follow :

<?php
$ip = $_REQUEST['REMOTE_ADDR']; // the IP address to query
$query = @unserialize(file_get_contents('http://ip-api.com/php/'.$ip));
if($query && $query['status'] == 'success') {
  echo 'Hello visitor from '.$query['country'].', '.$query['city'].'!';
} else {
  echo 'Unable to get location';
}
?>

the query have many other informations:

array (
  'status'      => 'success',
  'country'     => 'COUNTRY',
  'countryCode' => 'COUNTRY CODE',
  'region'      => 'REGION CODE',
  'regionName'  => 'REGION NAME',
  'city'        => 'CITY',
  'zip'         => ZIP CODE,
  'lat'         => LATITUDE,
  'lon'         => LONGITUDE,
  'timezone'    => 'TIME ZONE',
  'isp'         => 'ISP NAME',
  'org'         => 'ORGANIZATION NAME',
  'as'          => 'AS NUMBER / NAME',
  'query'       => 'IP ADDRESS USED FOR QUERY',
)

Answer 5

Not sure if this is a new service but now (2016) the easiest way in php is to use geoplugin's php web service: http://www.geoplugin.net/php.gp:

Basic usage:

// GET IP ADDRESS
if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])) {
    $ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
} else if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])) {
    $ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
} else if (!empty($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'])) {
    $ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
} else {
    $ip = false;
}

// CALL THE WEBSERVICE
$ip_info = unserialize(file_get_contents('http://www.geoplugin.net/php.gp?ip='.$ip));

They also provide a ready built class: http://www.geoplugin.com/_media/webservices/geoplugin.class.php.tgz?id=webservices%3Aphp&cache=cache

Answer 6

We can use geobytes.com to get the location using user IP address

$user_ip = getIP();
$meta_tags = get_meta_tags('http://www.geobytes.com/IPLocator.htm?GetLocation&template=php3.txt&IPAddress=' . $user_ip);
echo '<pre>';
print_r($meta_tags);

it will return data like this

Array(
    [known] => true
    [locationcode] => USCALANG
    [fips104] => US
    [iso2] => US
    [iso3] => USA
    [ison] => 840
    [internet] => US
    [countryid] => 254
    [country] => United States
    [regionid] => 126
    [region] => California
    [regioncode] => CA
    [adm1code] =>     
    [cityid] => 7275
    [city] => Los Angeles
    [latitude] => 34.0452
    [longitude] => -118.2840
    [timezone] => -08:00
    [certainty] => 53
    [mapbytesremaining] => Free
)

Function to get user IP

function getIP(){
if (isset($_SERVER["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"])){
    $pattern = "/^(([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5]).){3}([1-9]?[0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|2[0-4][0-9]|25[0-5])$/";
    if(preg_match($pattern, $_SERVER["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"])){
            $userIP = $_SERVER["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
    }else{
            $userIP = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"];
    }
}
else{
  $userIP = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"];
}
return $userIP;
}