R scripts for Google Places API

Abstract

This R script takes geospatial geometries as input and retrieves all Google Places Points of Interest (POIs) in the area, generating as many as sub-queries as needed.

This script was developed for non-profit academic research in geographic data science.

Instructions

1. Run google_place_scraper.R to collect data from the Google API. Input needed:

• A Google Maps API key or multiple keys (one on each row) in data/input/google_api.txt
• List of Google Place types to retrieve in input_place_types.csv. Edit file to change selection.
• Spatial Polygon data frame with polygons from function load_input_areas() in setup.R. Modify function to load other geometries.

2. Run google_place_extract.Rmd to extract results into a GeoPackage. See markdown for details.

Output:

• JSON results from the API.
• GeoPackage with all retrieved POIs linked to specific areas from load_input_areas().

Publications

N.A.

Author

Andrea Ballatore © Birkbeck, University of London, 2020

Last updated

Dec 2020