How to add CloudFront Viewer location headers to Edge-Optimized API Gateway

Question

How do I add CloudFront Viewer location headers, specifically latitude and longitude, to Edge-Optimized API Gateway calls? The calls are routed to lambdas that perform business logic and return a response. Some of the operations require knowing the latitude and longitude of the user. I was told, not sure if it's correct or not, that I can't add the headers to an Edge-Optimized api. I then tried to create a regional api and add the headers, but my api calls started sending the same payload back to my application. I believe it was a caching issue, but I'm not sure. My goal, if possible, would be to set up an api that performs the same way as an Edge-Optimized api, but includes the CloudFront Viewer headers CloudFront-Viewer-Latitude, CloudFront-Viewer-Longitude, and CloudFront-Viewer-Time-Zone.

re:Post Agent · Answer

Unfortunately, it's not possible to directly add CloudFront Viewer location headers like CloudFront-Viewer-Latitude, CloudFront-Viewer-Longitude, and CloudFront-Viewer-Time-Zone to an Edge-Optimized API Gateway. Edge-Optimized API Gateways are already integrated with CloudFront, but they don't provide access to these specific geolocation headers.

However, you can achieve your goal by using a combination of CloudFront and a Regional API Gateway. Here's a recommended approach:

1. Create a Regional API Gateway instead of an Edge-Optimized one.

2. Set up a CloudFront distribution in front of your Regional API Gateway. This allows you to leverage CloudFront's geolocation capabilities.

3. Create an Origin Request Policy for your CloudFront distribution. In this policy, include the headers you need: CloudFront-Viewer-Country and CloudFront-Viewer-Country-Region. Unfortunately, CloudFront doesn't provide direct latitude, longitude, or time zone headers, but you can use these country and region headers as a starting point.

4. Attach this Origin Request Policy to the behavior in your CloudFront distribution that routes requests to your API Gateway.

5. In your Lambda functions, you can now access these headers from the event object. You'll need to implement logic to map the country and region information to more specific latitude, longitude, and time zone data if required.

6. To avoid caching issues, make sure to configure your CloudFront distribution and API Gateway caching settings appropriately. You may need to disable caching or set up cache keys based on the relevant headers and request parameters.

By using this setup, you can maintain the performance benefits of an edge-optimized setup while also gaining access to geolocation information. Your API calls will be routed through CloudFront's global network to the nearest edge location, and then to your Regional API Gateway, providing a similar experience to an Edge-Optimized API Gateway.

Remember that while this approach doesn't provide exact latitude and longitude, it gives you country and region information, which can be used as a basis for approximating location in many use cases. If you need more precise location data, you might need to consider alternative methods, such as using a third-party geolocation service or having the client send location information directly.
      
**Sources**  
[How do I make CloudFront request headers available in my edge compute functions? | AWS re:Post](https://repost.aws/questions/QUONta1VYYTQyDd40YfH6IYA/how-do-i-make-cloudfront-request-headers-available-in-my-edge-compute-functions)  
[Community | Serverless statistics solution with Lambda@Edge](https://community.aws/content/2dv4ik8TY28kg8H9quba0wdelN7/serverless-statistics-solution-with-lambda-edge)

How to add CloudFront Viewer location headers to Edge-Optimized API Gateway

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