Possible best initial placement could also use metadata from map template / category

[timwaters]

"best placement" uses YQL to find a potential best place for the map based on the title only.

We can get more metadata from the API and pass that to the query.

If maps are part of a category and the category is set to a default location, then it should go to that location first.

In addition we could use Wikidata for getting places if supplied in metadata?

[susannaanas]

Map template has two fields for location: textual (location, free text) and Wikidata location (Qid, accepts currently only one value). Additionally data can be stored in the name or the description. Categories rarely have location unless we start to use it for that. Category name or text on the category page may hold clues to the location.

[Abbe98]

I have used Pelias(Mapzen Search) for reverse-geocoding in the past, the public API returns great results most of the time.

Actually this functionality could be client side.

http://abbe98.github.io/blog/2016/02/04/digging-deeper-with-heritage-data-and-a-geocoder