Submit user location in a form

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to get the location of someone filling out a web form on my site. I just want to get it down to a state level for US and Country for international(although state or equivalent is fine international too). I just don't want the user to have to select from a super long list or fill out a field. So ideally something like a hidden field that could have javascript or php pass the info to it.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can try; http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_geolocation.asp

And using Google API: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?zoom=10&size=400x400&maptype=roadmap&markers=color:red%7Ccolor:red%7Clabel:C%7Cxx.xxxxxxx,xx.xxxxxxx&sensor=false

Using PHP or Javascript to replace the "xx.xxxxxxx"'s will give you a map of the users location.

You can probably use Google API to determine the users State, etc - as you mentioned. But I don't think you will be baby fed on this one.

Answer 2

You could try to figure out their location using their IP address . However, this is far from reliable. Unfortunately, if you need this data to be accurate, you're going to have to get them to give you their location.