The Airbnb data contains location information in the form of latitude and longitude. This is very helpful for positioning the markers on the map. We can produce a marker for each property in exactly its location on the map. However, what if we wanted to aggregate the data by zip code or we didn't have a latitude and longitude in the data? That's where geocoding comes in. It's a way of translating a textual location into a latitude and longitude for positioning on a map.
We'll be using the zip code for geocoding in the first instance—it works reasonably well. Then, we'll start to experiment with the city. This is a lot more tricky, as the cities are not unique names globally and the cities have all been entered by hand. Ultimately, the positioning can only be as good as the underlying data allows.
