Welcome to Amazon Location Service

Welcome to the Amazon Location Service Developer Guide.

The following topics can help you get started in the documentation, based on what you are trying to do.

Get an overview of Amazon Location

• Learn about the concepts in Amazon Location.

• Dive deeper into the functionality in the How to use Amazon Location Service chapter.

• See demo apps in the Amazon Location demo site.

• If you already have an AWS account, you can use the Amazon Location Service console to explore the functionality first-hand.

Use Amazon Location as a developer

• Build your first app with the Quick start.

• Learn how the various Amazon Location Service features work in the How to use Amazon Location Service chapter.

• See the SDKs and tools available to you in the Developing with Amazon Location chapter.

• See code examples and tutorials that you can use in your own apps. You can also visit the Amazon Location demo site samples page to find samples, filterable by feature, language, or platform.

• Get information about Amazon Location APIs in the API Reference guide.

What is Amazon Location Service?

Amazon Location Service lets you add location data and functionality to applications, which includes capabilities such as maps, points of interest, geocoding, routing, geofences, and tracking. Amazon Location provides location-based services (LBS) using high-quality data from global, trusted providers Esri, Grab, and HERE. With affordable data, tracking and geofencing capabilities, and built-in metrics for health monitoring, you can build sophisticated location-enabled applications.

With Amazon Location, you retain control of your organization’s data. Amazon Location anonymizes all queries sent to data providers by removing customer metadata and account information. Additionally, sensitive tracking and geofencing location information, such as facility, asset, and personnel locations, does not leave your AWS account at all. This helps you protect sensitive information from third parties, protect user privacy, and reduce your application’s security risks. With Amazon Location, Amazon and third parties do not have rights to sell your data or use it for advertising.

Amazon Location is fully integrated with services such as AWS CloudTrail, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon EventBridge, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). Amazon Location simplifies your development workflow with data integration, and fast tracks apps to production with built-in monitoring, security, and compliance features.

For highlights, product details, and pricing, see the service page for Amazon Location Service.

Key features in Amazon Location

Amazon Location provides the following features:

Maps

Amazon Location Service Maps lets you visualize location information and is the foundations of many location-based service capabilities. Amazon Location Service provides map tiles of different styles sourced from global location data providers Esri, Grab, and HERE, as well Open data maps.

Places

Amazon Location Service Places lets you integrate search functionality into your application, convert addresses into geographic coordinates in latitude and longitude (geocoding), and convert a coordinate into a street address (reverse geocoding). Amazon Location Service sources high-quality geospatial data from Esri, Grab, and HERE to support Places functions.

Routing

Amazon Location Service Routes lets you find routes and estimate travel time based on up-to-date roadway and live traffic information. Build features that allow your application to request the travel time, distance, and directions between any two locations. Calculate the time and distance for a matrix of routes to use in route planning.

Geofencing

Amazon Location Service Geofences lets you give your application the ability to detect and act when a device enters or exits a defined geographical boundary known as a geofence. Automatically send an entry or exit event to Amazon EventBridge when a geofence breach is detected. This lets you initiate downstream actions such as sending a notification to a target.

Trackers

Amazon Location Service Trackers lets you retrieve the current and historical location of devices that are running your tracking-enabled application. You can also link trackers with Amazon Location Service geofences to evaluate location updates from your devices against your geofences automatically. Trackers can help you reduce costs by filtering position updates that haven't moved before storing or evaluating them against geofences.

When you use trackers, sensitive location information on your tracked devices does not leave your AWS account. This helps protect sensitive information from third parties, protect user privacy, and reduce security risks.

Services you can use with Amazon Location

Use the following services along with Amazon Location Service.

Integrated monitoring and management

Amazon Location Service is integrated with Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon EventBridge for efficient monitoring and data management:

• Amazon CloudWatch – View metrics on service usage and health, including requests, latency, faults, and logs. For more information, see Monitoring Amazon Location Service with Amazon CloudWatch.

• AWS CloudTrail – Log and monitor your API calls, which include actions taken by a user, role or an AWS service. For more information, see Logging and monitoring with AWS CloudTrail.

• Amazon EventBridge – Enable an event-driven application architecture so you can use AWS Lambda functions to activate other parts of your application and work flows. For more information, see Reacting to Amazon Location Service events with Amazon EventBridge.

Developer tools

Amazon Location Service offers a variety of tools for developers to build location-enabled applications. These include the standard AWS SDKs, mobile and web SDKs, and sample code to combine them with open source libraries such as MapLibre. Use the Amazon Location Service console to learn about resources, and to get started with a visual and interactive learning tool.