Searching by Location on Instagram

By Randall Blackburn

Search photos tagged with a location from the Instagram mobile app.
i Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

You can only search the locations of Instagram photos if the posters have tagged their photos with location hashtags. You can search by location from the Instagram app the same way you would search any other hashtag or keyword. However, you can also view a individual user’s Photo Map from his profile page, if he has enabled the feature on his account. Third-party search tools -- like Spots, Worldcam and InstaBAM -- provide power users and marketing professionals with extensive location search tools for the Instagram platform.

Search Location Hashtags

To find photos tagged with a specific location, tap the star-shaped icon from the Instagram app's main screen to open the Explore screen. Tap the magnifying glass icon to display the Search tool, tap the “Tags” tab, and then type a hashtag, along with the name of the location, in the Search box. For example, type “#Chicago” to find posts tagged with Chicago. Similar tags appear in the search results below the Search field -- for example, #ChicagoCubs may also appear in the search results. Tap a hashtag entry in the search results to view tagged posts.

Photo Map

To view a user’s Photo Map, open her profile page by tapping on her hyperlinked username from any post or screen. You can also search for the user from the Explore screen: tap the “Photo Map” icon in the user’s profile page to view a Google map view of her posts tagged by location.

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