Ruby Gem Geocoder gives incorrect latitude value for zip code in Rails

I am using rails to geocode zip codes. As a test I used the code on zip code 60601 using:

Geocoder.search(60601).first.latitude

However, this results in 9.42233953846154, which is incorrect. The correct value should be 41.something. So it's way off.

Is there a better way to get an accurate result?

You should try,

 Geocoder.search(60601)[1].latitude

because this specific '60601' zipcode has multiple locations on Earth so u need to find a specific address from the hash here, when you search 60601 then you can check that there is a total of 3 location there.

Geocoder.search(60601)
=> 
[#<Geocoder::Result::Nominatim:0x00007faaf0440ac8
  @cache_hit=nil,
  @data=
   {"place_id"=>328970067,
    "licence"=>"Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright",
    "lat"=>"9.42233953846154",
    "lon"=>"-84.15445643076923",
    "class"=>"place",
    "place_rank"=>21,
    "importance"=>0.22500009999999993,
    "addresstype"=>"postcode",
    "name"=>"60601",
    "display_name"=>"Quepos, Cantón Quepos, 60601, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica",
    "address"=>{"town"=>"Quepos", "county"=>"Cantón Quepos", "postcode"=>"60601", "province"=>"Puntarenas Province", "ISO3166-2-lvl4"=>"CR-P", "country"=>"Costa Rica", "country_code"=>"cr"},
    "boundingbox"=>["9.2623395", "9.5823395", "-84.3144564", "-83.9944564"]}>,
 #<Geocoder::Result::Nominatim:0x00007faaf04407d0
  @cache_hit=nil,
  @data=
   {"place_id"=>331500121,
    "licence"=>"Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright",
    "lat"=>"41.838471146546546",
    "lon"=>"-87.80685671291292",
    "class"=>"place",
    "type"=>"postcode",
    "place_rank"=>21,
    "addresstype"=>"postcode",
    "name"=>"60601",
    "display_name"=>"Riverside, Riverside Township, Cook County, 60601, Illinois, United States",
    "address"=>
 {"village"=>"Riverside",
      "municipality"=>"Riverside Township",
      "county"=>"Cook County",
      "postcode"=>"60601",
      "state"=>"Illinois",
      "ISO3166-2-lvl4"=>"US-IL",
      "country"=>"United States",
      "country_code"=>"us"},
    "boundingbox"=>["41.6784711", "41.9984711", "-87.9668567", "-87.6468567"]}>,
 #<Geocoder::Result::Nominatim:0x00007faaf04404d8
  @cache_hit=nil,
   {"place_id"=>331343428,
    "licence"=>"Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. http://osm.org/copyright",
    "lat"=>"52.41794258392857",
    "lon"=>"16.910198301785712",
    "class"=>"place",
    "type"=>"postcode",
    "place_rank"=>25,
    "importance"=>0.12500009999999995,
    "addresstype"=>"postcode",
    "name"=>"60-601",
    "display_name"=>"Sołacz, Poznan, 60-601, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland",
    "address"=>{"suburb"=>"Sołacz", "city"=>"Poznan", "postcode"=>"60-601", "state"=>"Greater Poland Voivodeship", "ISO3166-2-lvl4"=>"PL-30", "country"=>"Poland", "country_code"=>"pl"},
    "boundingbox"=>["52.2579426", "52.5779426", "16.7501983", "17.0701983"]}>]