Geoparsing is the process of assigning geographic identifiers (e.g., codes or geographic coordinates expressed as latitude-longitude) to textual words and phrases that occur in unstructured content, such as "twenty miles north east of Jalalabad". You can also geoparse location references from other forms of media, for example audio content in which a speaker mentions a place. With geographic coordinates the features can be mapped and entered into Geographic Information Systems. Two primary uses of the geographic coordinates derived from unstructured content are to plot portions of the content on maps and to search the content using a map as a filter.
Geoparsing goes beyond geocoding. Geocoding analyzes unambiguous structured location references, such as postal addresses and rigorously formatted numerical coordinates. Geoparsing handles ambiguous references in unstructured discourse, such as "Al Hamra," which is the name of several places, including towns in both Syria and Yemen.
A geoparser is a piece of software or a (web) service that helps in this process.