Instagram posts can be associated with a place using what feature?

Instagram posts can be associated with a place using geographical tagging, also commonly called geotagging. This feature attaches a named location or geographic information to a photo or video post.

Location tagging lets viewers discover content connected with a place, such as a restaurant, landmark, neighborhood, or city. When a user selects a location while posting, Instagram displays that place on the post and can group public content associated with the same location.

The feature fits Instagram’s origins. The service began as Burbn, a mobile check-in application, before the founders narrowed its focus to photo sharing. Instagram’s early location tools used technology from the Foursquare API to provide named location tagging; the service later tested and adopted Facebook Places technology.

Geographical tagging is different from push alerts, which are notifications sent to a device, and threaded comments, which organize replies. Face recognition may be used in some image-related functions, but it is not the feature that associates a post with a place.