INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD AND APPARATUS

Such a system is provided in which a map can be supplied to a user to permit the user to grasp the geography easily, if the address or the telephone number of an installation of destination, such as a restaurant, is stated, even though the scheme of displaying a map picture is not stated by an information provider in a text document of a preset format. An HTML analyzer 211 initiates an analysis loop of an HTML document being browsed to extract a location information letter/character string, which is seemingly an address or a telephone number, from the HTML document. A location searcher 212 calculates the latitude/longitude of a site from the location information letter/character string received through controller 217, using a site information database 213, and sends the so calculated latitude/longitude through controller 217 to a map picture generating unit 214. The map picture generating unit 214 references the map information database 215 connected to it to generate a map picture of an area around the site of destination, e.g., a restaurant.