Quickstart

Search places near a coordinate.

Open Places API has one public search endpoint: GET /v1/places. Send the API key from your backend, include a location scope, and keep browser frontends away from the secret. Use q for text search, or use category to list every matching category in an area.

cURL GET /v1/places

curl -G "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places" \
  --data-urlencode "q=coffee" \
  --data-urlencode "lat=40.7128" \
  --data-urlencode "lon=-74.0060" \
  --data-urlencode "radius_mi=25" \
  --data-urlencode "limit=10" \
  --data-urlencode "min_confidence=0.85" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY"

cURL category browse

curl -G "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places" \
  --data-urlencode "category=cafe" \
  --data-urlencode "lat=40.7128" \
  --data-urlencode "lon=-74.0060" \
  --data-urlencode "radius_mi=25" \
  --data-urlencode "limit=50" \
  --data-urlencode "offset=0" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY"

Endpoint

One route, scoped by radius.

GET /v1/places

Returns Overture-backed place results, optionally merged with community and account-owned layers.

Parameter	Required	Use
`q`	Usually	Search text. Required unless `category` is supplied.
`category`	No	Exact Overture category string such as `cafe`. When supplied, `q` becomes optional.
`lat`, `lon`	Yes	Latitude and longitude for the search center.
`radius_mi`	No	Search radius in miles. Defaults to `25`; maximum is `50`.
`mode`	No	Search mode: `all`, `name`, or `address`. Defaults to `all`.
`limit`	No	Number of results to return. Defaults to `10`; text search max `20`, category browse max `50`.
`offset`	No	Category-browse pagination offset, capped at `950`. Each page counts as one search.
`min_confidence`	No	Minimum Overture confidence score from `0` to `1`. No default filter is applied.
`layers`	No	Explicit ordered layer stack, for example `base,open,account:client-a`.
`layer_preset`	No	Saved account preset. Mutually exclusive with `layers`.

Server examples

Keep API keys on your backend.

const apiKey = process.env.OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY;

if (!apiKey) throw new Error("OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY is required");

const url = new URL("https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places");
url.search = new URLSearchParams({
  q: "ramen",
  lat: "35.6762",
  lon: "139.6503",
  radius_mi: "25",
  mode: "all",
  min_confidence: "0.85",
}).toString();

const response = await fetch(url, {
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}` },
});

const body = await response.json();

import os
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places",
    params={
        "q": "coffee",
        "lat": 40.7128,
        "lon": -74.0060,
        "radius_mi": 25,
        "limit": 10,
        "min_confidence": 0.85,
    },
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY']}"},
    timeout=10,
)
response.raise_for_status()
data = response.json()

Next steps

Choose the detail you need.

Layer selection Control base, community, and account-owned records. Errors and quota Handle validation, auth, quota, coverage, and rate limits. API reference Review parameters, responses, headers, and the OpenAPI contract. Data quality Understand confidence scores, filtering, missing fields, and coordinate caveats. Data rights Review cache, storage, redistribution, and open-license positioning.