How to get country code by IP in Node.js with sample codes

How to get country code in Node.js?

E.G : ‘US’ , ‘BR’ , ‘JP’ , ..

This article explains the way with sample codes.

Table of Contents

1. Install request-ip module
2. Install geoip-lite module
3. Get country code by geoip-lite
If only country code is needed…
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1. Install request-ip module

First of all, install request-ip module.

This library can obtain user’s IP address.

Install via npm :

$ npm install request-ip

It supports both IPv4 and IPv6.

2. Install geoip-lite module

There are the library for GeoIP.

Github :

https://www.npmjs.com/package/geoip-lite

Install by npm :

$ npm install geoip-lite

This library can obtain the following country information from IP addresses.

2 letter country code
3 letter region code
Whether in the EU or not
Timezone
City name
Latitude, longitude
Metro code

It’s not only the country code that can be obtained.

3. Get country code by geoip-lite

Now let’s get country code by geoip-lite.

Sample code in Node.js + Express :

const geoip = require('geoip-lite');
const requestIp = require('request-ip');

app.use(function(req, res, next) {
  const clientIp = requestIp.getClientIp(req);
  const geo = geoip.lookup(clientIp);
  console.log('geo : ', geo);
    
  next();
});

The output of above code :

{ range: [ 3479298048, 3479300095 ],
  country: 'US',
  region: 'TX',
  eu: '0',
  timezone: 'America/Chicago',
  city: 'San Antonio',
  ll: [ 29.4969, -98.4032 ],
  metro: 641,
  area: 1000 }

You can obtain not only country code (E.G : ‘US’ , ‘BR’, ‘JP’) but also region code (E.G : ‘TX’ = Texas), 1 or 0 indicating whether the country is in the EU or not, timezone, city name, latitude and longitude etc…

If only country code is needed…

You do not need geoip-lite if you only want to get the country code.

You can use the geoip-country module instead.

Github : geoip-country

https://www.npmjs.com/package/geoip-country

Install geoip-country via npm

$ npm install geoip-country

Sample code to get country code :

const geoip = require('geoip-country');
const requestIp = require('request-ip');

app.use(function(req, res, next) {
  const clientIp = requestIp.getClientIp(req);
  const geo = geoip.lookup(clientIp);
  console.log('geo : ', geo);
    
  next();
});

The output of the above code :

{ range: [ 3479299040, 3479299071 ],
  country: 'US'}

The unpacked size of geoip-lite is 115 MB, too huge just to get the country code. On the other hand, geoio-country is lightweight at 11.4MB. I recommend using this one.

This article may be useful.

2 ways to get browser language in Node.js with sample codes

Good luck 👍

Code Ronna