Ranking location query results based on social networking data

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to at least:
• receive, from a user of a social networking system, a content item to be posted on the social networking system by the user;
• receive, at the social networking system from the user, a location query for a location with which the user is able to tag the content item as being related to the location so that a location tag is included in a post of the content item by the user, the location query having one or more attributes;
• to determine the candidate location tags from which the user selects at the application:
• access user profile data associated with the user in the social networking system, the user profile data describing characteristics of the user and other users of the social networking system connected to the user,
• access location data stored by the social networking system, the location data identifying a plurality of locations but not identifying a current location of the user, at least some of the plurality of locations having one or more attributes that are associated with historical user actions stored in the user profile data, the historical user actions unrelated to the current location of the user,
• select candidate locations from the plurality of locations, the candidate locations selected without considering the current location of the user, the selecting comprising matching the one or more attributes of the location query with the one or more attributes of the plurality of locations associated with the historical user actions that are unrelated to the current location of the user,
• rank the selected candidate locations based on the user profile data, and
• select a subset of the selected candidate locations for presentation to the user as the candidate location tags based on the ranking;
• and
• present the candidate location tags as selectable elements at the application for the user to select, at the application, the location with which to tag the content item to include the location in the post with the content item.