Leaflet.Locate

A useful control to geolocate the user with many options. Official Leaflet and MapBox plugin.

Tested with Leaflet 1.9.2 and Mapbox.js 3.3.1 in Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Please check for breaking changes in the changelog.

Demo

• Demo with Leaflet
• Demo with Mapbox.js

Basic Usage

Set up:

1. Get CSS and JavaScript files
2. Include CSS and JavaScript files
3. Initialize plugin

Download JavaScript and CSS files

For testing purposes and development, you can use the latest version directly from my repository.

For production environments, use Bower and run bower install leaflet.locatecontrol or download the files from this repository. Bower will always download the latest version and keep the code up to date. The original JS and CSS files are in \src and the minified versions suitable for production are in \dist.

You can also get the latest version of the plugin with npm. This plugin is available in the npm repository. Just run npm install leaflet.locatecontrol.

The control is available from JsDelivr CDN. If you don't need the latest version, you can use the mapbox CDN.

Add the JavaScript and CSS files

Then include the CSS and JavaScript files.

With CDN

In this example, we are loading the files from the JsDelivr CDN. In the URLs below, replace [VERSION] with the latest release number or remove @[VERSION] to always use the latest version.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/leaflet.locatecontrol@[VERSION]/dist/L.Control.Locate.min.css" />
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/leaflet.locatecontrol@[VERSION]/dist/L.Control.Locate.min.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

With npm

import "leaflet.locatecontrol"; // Import plugin
import "leaflet.locatecontrol/dist/L.Control.Locate.min.css"; // Import styles
import L from "leaflet"; // Import L from leaflet to start using the plugin

If you are using a bundler or esm, use

import { LocateControl } from "leaflet.locatecontrol";
import "leaflet.locatecontrol/dist/L.Control.Locate.min.css";

Then use new LocateControl() instead of L.control.locate().

Add the following snippet to your map initialization:

This snippet adds the control to the map. You can pass also pass a configuration.

L.control.locate().addTo(map);

Possible options

The locate controls inherits options from Leaflet Controls.

To customize the control, pass an object with your custom options to the locate control.

L.control.locate(OPTIONS).addTo(map);

Possible options are listed in the following table. More details are in the code.

Option	Type	Description	Default
position	string	Position of the control	topleft
layer	ILayer	The layer that the user's location should be drawn on.	a new layer
setView	boolean or string	Set the map view (zoom and pan) to the user's location as it updates. Options are false, 'once', 'always', 'untilPan', or 'untilPanOrZoom'	'untilPanOrZoom'
flyTo	boolean	Smooth pan and zoom to the location of the marker. Only works in Leaflet 1.0+.	false
keepCurrentZoomLevel	boolean	Only pan when setting the view.	false
initialZoomLevel	false or integer	After activating the plugin by clicking on the icon, zoom to the selected zoom level, even when keepCurrentZoomLevel is true. Set to false to disable this feature.	false
clickBehavior	object	What to do when the user clicks on the control. Has three options inView, inViewNotFollowing and outOfView. Possible values are stop and setView, or the name of a behaviour to inherit from.	{inView: 'stop', outOfView: 'setView', inViewNotFollowing: 'inView'}
returnToPrevBounds	boolean	If set, save the map bounds just before centering to the user's location. When control is disabled, set the view back to the bounds that were saved.	false
cacheLocation	boolean	Keep a cache of the location after the user deactivates the control. If set to false, the user has to wait until the locate API returns a new location before they see where they are again.	true
showCompass	boolean	Show the compass bearing on top of the location marker	true
drawCircle	boolean	If set, a circle that shows the location accuracy is drawn.	true
drawMarker	boolean	If set, the marker at the users' location is drawn.	true
markerClass	class	The class to be used to create the marker.	LocationMarker
compassClass	class	The class to be used to create the marker.	CompassMarker
circleStyle	Path options	Accuracy circle style properties.	see code
markerStyle	Path options	Inner marker style properties. Only works if your marker class supports setStyle.	see code
compassStyle	Path options	Triangle compass heading marker style properties. Only works if your marker class supports setStyle.	see code
followCircleStyle	Path options	Changes to the accuracy circle while following. Only need to provide changes.	{}
followMarkerStyle	Path options	Changes to the inner marker while following. Only need to provide changes.	{}
followCompassStyle	Path options	Changes to the compass marker while following. Only need to provide changes.	{}
icon	string	The CSS class for the icon.	leaflet-control-locate-location-arrow
iconLoading	string	The CSS class for the icon while loading.	leaflet-control-locate-spinner
iconElementTag	string	The element to be created for icons.	span
circlePadding	array	Padding around the accuracy circle.	[0, 0]
createButtonCallback	function	This callback can be used in case you would like to override button creation behavior.	see code
getLocationBounds	function	This callback can be used to override the viewport tracking behavior.	see code
onLocationError	function	This even is called when the user's location is outside the bounds set on the map.	see code
metric	boolean	Use metric units.	true
onLocationOutsideMapBounds	function	Called when the user's location is outside the bounds set on the map. Called repeatedly when the user's location changes.	see code
showPopup	boolean	Display a pop-up when the user click on the inner marker.	true
strings	object	Strings used in the control. Options are title, text, metersUnit, feetUnit, popup and outsideMapBoundsMsg	see code
strings.popup	string or function	The string shown as popup. May contain the placeholders {distance} and {unit}. If this option is specified as function, it will be executed with a single parameter {distance, unit} and expected to return a string.	see code
locateOptions	Locate options	The default options passed to leaflets locate method.	see code

For example, to customize the position and the title, you could write

var lc = L.control
  .locate({
    position: "topright",
    strings: {
      title: "Show me where I am, yo!"
    }
  })
  .addTo(map);

Screenshot

Users

Sites that use this locate control:

• OpenStreetMap on the start page
• MapBox
• wheelmap.org
• OpenMensa
• Maps Marker Pro (WordPress plugin)
• Bikemap
• MyRoutes
• NearbyWiki
• ...

Advanced Usage

Methods

You can call start() or stop() on the locate control object to set the location on page load for example.

// create control and add to map
var lc = L.control.locate().addTo(map);

// request location update and set location
lc.start();

You can keep the plugin active but stop following using lc.stopFollowing().

Events

You can leverage the native Leaflet events locationfound and locationerror to handle when geolocation is successful or produces an error. You can find out more about these events in the Leaflet documentation.

Additionally, the locate control fires locateactivate and locatedeactivate events on the map object when it is activated and deactivated, respectively.

Extending

To customize the behavior of the plugin, use L.extend to override start, stop, _drawMarker and/or _removeMarker. Please be aware that functions may change and customizations become incompatible.

L.Control.MyLocate = L.Control.Locate.extend({
  _drawMarker: function () {
    // override to customize the marker
  }
});

var lc = new L.Control.MyLocate();

FAQ

How do I set the maximum zoom level?

Set the maxZoom in locateOptions (keepCurrentZoomLevel must not be set to true).

map.addControl(
  L.control.locate({
    locateOptions: {
      maxZoom: 10
    }
  })
);

How do I enable high accuracy?

To enable high accuracy (GPS) mode, set the enableHighAccuracy in locateOptions.

map.addControl(
  L.control.locate({
    locateOptions: {
      enableHighAccuracy: true
    }
  })
);

Safari does not work with Leaflet 1.7.1

This is a bug in Leaflet. Disable tap to fix it for now. See this issue for details.

let map = new L.Map('map', {
    tap: false,
    ...
});

Developers

Run the demo locally with yarn start or npm run start and then open localhost:9000/demo/index.html.

To generate the minified JS and CSS files, use grunt and run grunt. However, don't include new minified files or a new version as part of a pull request. If you need SASS, install it with brew install sass/sass/sass.

Prettify and linting

Before a Pull Request please check the code style.

Run npm run lint to check if there are code style or linting issues.

Run npm run:fix to automatically fix style and linting issues.

Making a release (only core developer)

A new version is released with npm run bump:minor. Then push the new code with git push && git push --tags and publish to npm with npm publish.

Terms

• active: After we called map.locate() and before map.stopLocate(). Any time, the map can fire the locationfound or locationerror events.
• following: Following refers to whether the map zooms and pans automatically when a new location is found.

Thanks

To all contributors and issue reporters.

License

MIT

SVG icons from Font Awesome v5.15.4: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0