Python – Given a latitude and longitude, and distance, I want to find a bounding box

I suggest to approximate locally the Earth surface as a sphere with radius given by the WGS84 ellipsoid at the given latitude. I suspect that the exact computation of latMin and latMax would require elliptic functions and would not yield an appreciable increase in accuracy (WGS84 is itself an approximation).

My implementation follows (It's written in Python; I have not tested it):

# degrees to radians
def deg2rad(degrees):
    return math.pi*degrees/180.0
# radians to degrees
def rad2deg(radians):
    return 180.0*radians/math.pi

# Semi-axes of WGS-84 geoidal reference
WGS84_a = 6378137.0  # Major semiaxis [m]
WGS84_b = 6356752.3  # Minor semiaxis [m]

# Earth radius at a given latitude, according to the WGS-84 ellipsoid [m]
def WGS84EarthRadius(lat):
    # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_radius
    An = WGS84_a*WGS84_a * math.cos(lat)
    Bn = WGS84_b*WGS84_b * math.sin(lat)
    Ad = WGS84_a * math.cos(lat)
    Bd = WGS84_b * math.sin(lat)
    return math.sqrt( (An*An + Bn*Bn)/(Ad*Ad + Bd*Bd) )

# Bounding box surrounding the point at given coordinates,
# assuming local approximation of Earth surface as a sphere
# of radius given by WGS84
def boundingBox(latitudeInDegrees, longitudeInDegrees, halfSideInKm):
    lat = deg2rad(latitudeInDegrees)
    lon = deg2rad(longitudeInDegrees)
    halfSide = 1000*halfSideInKm

    # Radius of Earth at given latitude
    radius = WGS84EarthRadius(lat)
    # Radius of the parallel at given latitude
    pradius = radius*math.cos(lat)

    latMin = lat - halfSide/radius
    latMax = lat + halfSide/radius
    lonMin = lon - halfSide/pradius
    lonMax = lon + halfSide/pradius

    return (rad2deg(latMin), rad2deg(lonMin), rad2deg(latMax), rad2deg(lonMax))

EDIT: The following code converts (degrees, primes, seconds) to degrees + fractions of a degree, and vice versa (not tested):

def dps2deg(degrees, primes, seconds):
    return degrees + primes/60.0 + seconds/3600.0

def deg2dps(degrees):
    intdeg = math.floor(degrees)
    primes = (degrees - intdeg)*60.0
    intpri = math.floor(primes)
    seconds = (primes - intpri)*60.0
    intsec = round(seconds)
    return (int(intdeg), int(intpri), int(intsec))

I have found the results from the Google Maps Geocoder to be pretty good.

To test out your foreign postcodes or addresses (without writing any code), just attach the country name to the string and try it out in the google maps search box.

Or, you can implement the lookup pretty quickly in Javascript:

geo = new GClientGeocoder ();
geo.getLatLng("2337, Australia", function (point) {
        GLog.write(point.lat() + "," point.lng());
    });