Places Search

The Places Search query facilitates the interpretation of a place name with a standardized place description. Clients can interpret user-entered place names and associate a standardized place with the name. They can also retrieve specific types of places by including specific name-value pairs withing the places query parameter. Please note that all name-value pairs and URLs must adhere to the HTTP specifications. The following name-value pairs are applicable to the places query:

Query (q) parameter name-value pairs table:

NameDescription
nameThe name of the place. This parameter causes an interpretation of the name to occur, with results ordered in "best guess first" order. Supports the '?' and the '*' wildcards, but the wildcard MUST NOT be at beginning of name. Escape wildcard character with backslash '' for literal character search. Supports the '~' suffix for application-specific fuzzy search (incompatible with non-escaped wildcards). Wildcards and escaped wildcards on the same query are not supported. Example values: name:"New York, New York" or name:england or name:"par*,france"
partialNameThe partial name of the place. This parameter is used to search for the "partial" name of a place. A partial name search is designed specifically for type-ahead use cases. The treatment of wildcards in a partial name is unspecified. If partialName is used, the name parameter will be ignored.
dateThe date (or date range). Supports the '+' operator to specify a required date (or date range). When there is no '-' operator, the date (or date range) is optional. Implied granularity is in years. See the GEDCOM X Date Format for more information. +date:1800/1900 or +date:1823 or date:1723/2000
typeIdThe place type id. Supports the '+' operator to require the results to conform to the type. Supports the '-' operator to exclude places that conform to the type. Otherwise, the type is optional. For example, if '186' is the type id for cities, to include only cities in your results, enter +typeId:186. To exclude cities in your results, enter -typeId:186. Also supports multiple typeIds, such as +typeId:186 or +typeId:209.
typeGroupIdThe place type group id. Supports the '+' operator to require the results to conform to the type group. Supports the '-' operator to exclude places that conform to the type group. Otherwise, the type group is optional. Supports multiple typeGroupIds in the form of +typeGroupId:123 +typeGroupId:456
parentIdThe parent jurisdiction (as a Place Description identifier) to limit the search results. Supports the '+' operator to require the results to have the parent jurisdiction. Supports the '-' operator to exclude places that are within the parent jurisdiction. Supports the '' suffix for "any child", otherwise, implies direct parent. With no '+' or '-' specified, the parent is optional. For example, if the request is +parentId:1 (US), all places within the US is returned. If the request is +parentId:1, only direct parents, like states, are returned. Supports multiple parentIds in the form of +parentId:1~ or -parentId:32.
latitudeThe latitude of a centroid to search near.
longitudeThe longitude of a centroid to search near.
distanceThe distance from the centroid to search near. Units can be specified in Kilometers (K) or Miles (M) by appending the appropriate letter to the value. For example, distance:45K. Default unit is miles.
placeHintA place to use as a hint for finding the proper Place Representation. The assumption is that the hint specified has some form of relationship to the Place Representation being looked for, such as a parent or child jurisdiction, a nearby place, etc. The value of this parameter can be a comma-delimited list of Place Rep IDs or a semi-colon-delimited list of names.
Language
Click Try It! to start a request and see the response here!